New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday ruled out including the GST rate in the Constitution Amendment Bill saying tariffs can't be cast in stone.
He said the Congress, which has opposed the GST Bill over three main demands, should accept the UPA Finance Minister P Chidambaram's proposal for a GST Council or its appointed forum for resolving tax disputes, instead of its demand for a Supreme Court judge being the adjudicating authority.
Speaking at a television channel programme, Jaitley said the Congress was changing stance everyday as it believes none other than persons from one family have the right to rule the country.
"Why don't you say directly that we want to stall country's progress. For the Congress, except one family, no one else can rule. This is the basic point," he said. "Daily they change their stance."
Asked about his statements as opposition leader and Gujarat's opposition to GST, he said he had never ever opposed the Goods and Services Tax regime that will replace all indirect taxes to create a unified market.
The UPA, which had in 2006 mooted the GST, had failed to build consensus amongst the states over issues like loss of revenue to manufacturing states like Tamil Nadu and Gujarat as the new regime was more a destination oriented tax.
The NDA government, he said, has been able to bring about a consensus in the first six months.
On Congress demands for inclusion of a GST rate of 18 percent in Constitution Amendment Bill, Jaitley said tax rates are not mentioned in Constitution anywhere in the world. "Are tariffs ever cast in stone. It happens nowhere in this world. You (Congress) are trying to impose an impossible condition."
On the party's other demand of scrapping the powers to states to levy 1 per cent additional tax over and above the GST rate, he said the government will talk to manufacturing states like Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, which have been demanding such a levy.
