Revenue Secretary lauds GST Council's hard work in passage of 'four classic legislations'

New Delhi [India], Mar. 29 (ANI): With the Lok Sabha passing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill today, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia applauded the GST council members' efforts that led to bearing fruit in terms of four classic pieces of legislations. Adhia appreciated the hard work and said he hoped no flaw would be witnessed in the implementation of the bill. "My compliments to all those who worked hard in the last 10 years to arrive at this historic milestone in economic history of this country," Adhia said while briefing the media here. Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das termed the moment as an 'historic occasion' in the Lok Sabha and said he considered himself fortunate to witness the transformative movement. The Lok Sabha today passed four key Goods and Services Tax Bills, rejecting amendments moved by the opposition. The Bills are related to Central GST, Integrated GST, UT GST and GST Compensation. The Central GST deals with taxation related to Centre, integrated GST deals in taxation of inter-state movement of goods and services while the Union Territory GST Bill covers taxation in Union Territories. The compensation law has been prepared to give a legislative backing to the Centre's promise to compensate the states for five years for any revenue loss arising out of GST implementation. Replying to around eight hour long debate, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the GST will replace various indirect taxes with a new tax regime which will ensure free flow of goods and services across the country. He said the goods will become slightly cheaper after multiplicity of taxes is removed. Government has set a target of first of July for rollout of GST, which will subsume excise, service tax, VAT and other local levies. Once these Bills are cleared by Parliament, the states will then take the state GST Bill to their respective assemblies. S-GST has been prepared as a model of the central GST, with each state incorporating state-specific exemptions. (ANI)