Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that the government has accommodated concerns of states on petroleum products.
Giving clarifications on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, Jaitley said, " We have kept petroleum products out of GST ambit for now."
He added that the date of petroleum products inclusion will be decided by the GST council.
Mitigating concerns of revenue generation, the finance minister said, " We dont envisage the revenues of states to come down due to GST."
"Payment of Central Sales Tax (CST) compensation will be made by government and it will be done in installments. We will provide for first installment in this fiscal," he said.
Stating that consuming states will benefit from GST immediately, Jaitley said that the government wants states to be on board with regards to it.
Earlier this week in a compromise deal, the Centre decided to keep petroleum out of GST in return for states agreeing to entry tax being subsumed in the new tax regime.
On the issue of compensation to states for revenue loss because of subsuming of all indirect taxes in the GST, the Finance Ministry was to seek legal opinion on how it could be accommodated in the Constitution Amendment Bill
States, which earn over 50 per cent of their revenues from taxes on petrol and other petro products, wanted it to be out of GST so they could continue with levying different tax rates on these products.
In the three rounds of talks that held last week, states insisted that the compensation part should be included in the Constitution Amendment Bill.
The idea of moving towards the GST was first mooted by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget for 2006-07. Initially, it was proposed that GST would be introduced by April 1, 2010.
With PTI Inputs
