Agreement on major GST issues still elusive: PWC

Amid fears that the GST implementation will miss the deadline, a leading consultancy firm PWC has said the Centre and states are yet to reach an agreement on major issues relating to the new tax regime.

“Agreement is yet to be reached on major issues such as the treatment of inter-state supplies of goods and services, imposition of GST on imports,” said a PiceWaterHouseCoopers report.

The Goods and Services Tax is scheduled to be introduced from April 1, 2010. However, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had recently said while the Centre and the states were serious over introducing the system as per schedule, he would not be surprised if there was slippage of a few months.

At present, Central Sales Tax (CST) of two per cent is imposed on inter-state movement of goods, but the proposed GST is expected to subsume CST. As such, there has to be an agreement as to how inter-state movement of goods will be taxed under the new regime.

While GST is not expected to replace customs duty, sources said it may subsume other taxes such as countervailing duty (CVD) on imported goods. But, it is yet to be decided as to how these existing taxes would be subsumed.

Besides, PWC said an agreement was yet to be arrived at regarding exemptions under Centre and State GSTs, and standardisation of procedures for implementation of new tax system.