The Kerala government issued an ordinance on Wednesday to ratify the State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) Act in order to enable the rollout of the new indirect tax regime in the State from July 1.
Jammu and Kashmir now remains the only State that has yet to pass the enabling GST legislation.
The ordinance was approved by the southern State a day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley warned that the States that fail to pass the GST-enabling law in time would lose out on compensation from the Centre for revenue losses from the GST transition in the first five years.
Mr. Jaitley had also warned that consumers in such States will lose out as products and services will be more expensive than the rest of the nation in the GST regime, while producers would not get any input tax credits for their raw materials.
Five States, one week
As many as five States have ratified the SGST law over the past week, including the Congress-ruled states of Karnataka and Punjab, and Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. The West Bengal and Kerala governments are the only ones to use the ordinance route for the SGST law.
“Now, only one State is left — the State of J&K — which is yet to pass the State GST Act. Thus, almost the entire country including all the 30 States and Union Territories are now on board and ready for the smooth roll-out of GST with effect from 1st July, 2017,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
