The Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley has assured the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan that the Centre would take care of the interests of the States while finalising the structure for proposed GST regime.
In a letter to the Chief Minister, the Union Minister in particular noted that since in the revised draft the powers of the GST Council was proposed to be recommendatory in nature it would not take away the legislative autonomy of State legislatures.
Mr. Jaitley was responding to a letter from Mr. Chohan expressing certain concerns over the proposed GST regime.
According to a statement issued by the State Government here, he noted that the Centre was working on a formula for arriving at a Revenue Neutral Rate (RNR) which would avoid any revenue loss to the States. In addition, in the revised draft states are proposed to be empowered to levy additional 2-3 percent of tax by way of band above the floor rates if needed.
He further informed that the Central Government has already set up a SPV namely GST Network to provide a strong IT infrastructure and service backbone in respect of inter-State trade of goods and services. The GST Network will fully take care of timely transfer of funds to the importing states in respect of taxation of inter-state supply of goods and services.
He also reported that the Empowered Committee has already constituted a panel to draft the Place of Supply Rules and that committee was likely to submit its report shortly. The Empowered Committee has also constituted a committee to look into issues relating to dual controls, exemption etc, he added.
