A total revamp of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) laws has been mooted to make it favourable to the States and for getting them a higher share of the GST.
Three proposals had been suggested for the revamp of the GST laws at a webinar on ‘COVID-19 Pandemic and Fiscal Federalism in India’ held on Monday and attended by the Finance Ministers of over half-a-dozen States.
Higher share
Instead of sharing the GST revenue equally between the State and the Centre, 60% of the GST should to the States and 40% to the Centre. The States should be given the authority to increase or decrease the SGST (State GST) component of the GST by 1 or 2%.
Thirdly, the term of paying GST compensation to the States should be increased as the GST administration has failed to take off.
Chief Minister of Puducherry V. Narayanaswamy, Finance Minister of Chattisgarh Singh Dio, Finance Minister of Punjab Manpreet Singh, Finance Minister of West Bengal and Chairman of the Empowered Committee of Finance Ministers on GST Amit Mitra, Finance Minister of Kerala T.M. Thomas Isaac, former Finance Minister Jammu and Kashmir Haseeb Drabu and officials from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Kerala and eminent scholars participated.
The States were of the view that they could not agree with any move of the Centre to create new statistics for compensation.