Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday, said that it is mandatory that the Goods and Services Tax (GST,) roll out by September 16, 2017. He said that the Centre is on a plan to kick start this by April 1, 2017. At the HTLS meet on day one, he said “So, there is Constitutional compulsion to have a GST in place before September 16 (2017), otherwise the country doesn’t run, and the tax is absolutely essential. Therefore, our intention is it gets implemented from April 1, 2017.”
He also added to this that the investors must be careful about goods and services business and the states that they are planning to invest in. Regarding this, he said, “the states must welcome the decision and I can only tell you, if some states are seen as opposing every reform, then investors in the country and the ones coming from outside, must decide which are the states they want to invest in.”
The differences in opinions in between the political parties in regard to Demonetisation has caused disruption in the GST planning. Some states like West Bengal has said that immediate implementation of GST after Demonetisation will cause a disruption in the economy. But the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, has a different opinion about this and said that the GST rollout will only boost the economy, which is what even the U.N., predicted. According to a report by the United Nations, the Indian economy will grow by 7.6 percent by the end of next fiscal year. Speaking on this Jaitley said that “I have the least doubt in my mind that by the next fiscal year you will have a bigger economy, higher GDP, cleaner GDP. You will have a higher tax base and more money in banks, and probably interest rates will be more reasonable. Therefore, all these collectively could contribute a lot as far as GDP is concerned.”
Mr. Jaitley also said that he was quite confident that once remonetisation is complete it will improve the Indian citizen’s way of life and improve businesses. He also added, “You will have more of digitized expenditures, you will have a taxation system far more efficient, which is extremely difficult to evade, where each limb of the transaction is being captured.” The online payments keep all the transactions transparent and this will lead to a corruption free India.
