The Union government has roped in actor Amitabh Bachchan to promote the Goods and Services Tax (GST), ahead of its implementation from July 1.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs will make the 74-year-old star the brand ambassador of the GST. A 40-second video featuring him had been shot and is being circulated.
“GST — An initiative to create a unified national market,” the Finance Ministry said in a tweet, attaching the video.
In the video, Mr. Bachchan explains the GST as an unifying force just like the three colours in the national flag. The GST is an initiative to create ‘one nation, one tax, one market’, he says.
Ace badminton player PV Sindhu was previously the GST ambassador.
The GST will simplify a web of taxes, regulations and border levies by subsuming an array of Central and State levies, including excise duty, service tax and VAT.
It is being dubbed as the most significant economic reform since the BJP government came to power in 2014 and is expected to add as much as 2 percentage points to the GDP growth rate.
A four-rate structure that exempts or imposes a low rate of tax 5 % on essential items and top rate of 28 % on cars and consumer durables has been finalised. The other slabs of tax are 12 and 18 %.
The GST also represents an unprecedented exercise in fiscal federalism. The GST Council, that brings together the Central and State governments, has met 17 times to thrash out how the tax will work.