NEW DELHI: Union minister
Smriti Irani on Sunday took aim at
Congress president
Rahul Gandhi for trying to "berate India's progress" after he once again used the '
Gabbar Singh Tax' jibe to attack the Centre.
The information and broadcasting minister tweeted, "Rahul Gandhi's hatred for India is astonishing. When
World Bank hailed India's rise in
Ease of Doing Business rankings
+ , he rubbished the report. Now selectively quotes WB report to berate India's progress!"
The minister also shared a report to bolster her point, asking Gandhi to "enlighten" himself if he was "free from the world's longest coronation exercise."
The article posted by Irani slammed as "mischievous" media reports that "picked up the conclusion paragraph only, ignoring many positive aspects of introduction and implementation of
GST in India," reported PTI.
Earlier today, Gandhi used the World Bank's biannual India Development Update report to hit out at the Modi government over the
Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The report pegs the Indian GST system as among the most complex in the world, with not only one of the highest tax rates but also one of the largest numbers of tax slabs.
"The tax rates in the Indian GST system are among the highest in the world. The highest GST rate in India, while only applying to a subset of goods and services traded, is 28 per cent, which is the second highest among a sample of 115 countries which have a GST (VAT) system and for which data is available," the World Bank said.
The different GST rates applicable on different categories of goods and services make the system more complex.
India currently has four non-zero rates: 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent. Apart from that, several items are taxed at zero per cent while gold is taxed at 3 per cent.
A World Bank spokesperson, however, clarified that India is unique in terms of its size and scale of implementation when compared to other counties that have introduced GST, reported news agency IANS.
"The difference with other countries in design is therefore to be expected," he said.
While taking note of the disruptions in the initial days of the introduction of GST, the report said the introduction of the tax reform should be seen as the start of a process and not the end.
"Drawing actively from user-feedback, the government has been very alert to implementation challenges and continues to take steps to make GST compliance more simple and efficient," the spokesperson added.
The World Bank said that "the benefits of the GST are likely to outweigh its costs in the long run".
"Despite the initial hiccups, the introduction of GST is having a far-reaching impact on reducing tax-related barriers to trade barriers, which was one of the primary goals of the introduction," it said.
(With inputs from agencies)
