Eager to meet the 1 April target to roll out the landmark Goods and Services Tax (GST), the government may advance the Winter Session of Parliament by a fortnight to get supporting legislation passed, leaving sufficient time for implementation of the new indirect tax regime.
Winter Session of Parliament is normally convened in the third or fourth week of November but this year the government is looking at beginning the month-long session immediately after the end of the festival season.
An early Winter Session would help get the Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) legislation, that will pave way for the Goods and Services Tax (GST), to be approved by November or latest by early December, government officials said.
The two are supporting legislations to the Constitutional Amendment Bill approved in the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
The GST requires the ratification of half of the 31 states for it to become a law. It has already been ratified by 8 state assemblies.
Maharashtra and Haryana are likely to follow suit soon and the requisite numbers may be in place by September, an official said. He said that with the required number of states ratifying the Bill, there are discussion that the Winter Session should be advanced to around 9-10 November, after the festivities, including Chhath Puja. However, that would require consensus of all the political parties.
The government is of the view that once half of all state legislatures approve the new national sales tax regime, the GST Council - comprising Union finance minister and state finance ministers, can be nudged to quickly approve the tax rate, slabs and exemptions for it to be incorporated in the supporting legislation.
Parliament nod to the legislation in the Winter Session would give enough time to prepare for the roll-out of GST from 1 April 2017. The new regime will subsume excise, service tax and other local levies including VAT and octroi.
Read more on BloombergQuint.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)