GST to cover almost all goods and services: Pranab

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee today unveiled the contours of a comprehensive goods and services tax (GST), which would apply to as large a range of goods and services as possible by minimising the number of exemptions to a small list of essential items that impact the common man.

Releasing the first discussion paper prepared by the empowered committee on GST, headed by West Bengal finance minister Asim Dasgupta, the finance minister said to the extent possible, the exemption lists of both the states and the central government are in alignment with the proposed tax rates.

The rates of tax of central goods and services tax (CGST) and state goods and services tax (SGST) taken together are moderate and, as far as possible, every transaction in the tax net would bear both CGST and SGST.

The rates of tax of SGST and exemptions from SGST are also uniform throughout the country so that a given set of goods and services invites the same tax treatment in every state, he said.

The GST has also kept input credit chain seamless covering the entire value chain from manufacturing to retail without breaks regardless of whether goods or services are supplied within a state or across state boundaries.
 
The tax treatment of goods and services is also similar.

Under the GST regime, both central and state levies will be fully neutralised in the case of exports (out of India) and the procedures would be simple and harmonised between the centre and the states.