GST Bill to be passed on June 12

SHILLONG, JUN 5: The Congress led State government today approved the Draft Meghalaya Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill, which will be tabled before the Assembly in a special session to be held on June 12.

Addressing newsmen after a Cabinet meeting here, chief minister Mukul Sangma said, “We have approved the proposed Bill for placing before the Assembly for the state to join the nation in implementation of the GST in the country.”

He informed that the government had already written to the Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Assembly Speaker AT Mondal for convening the special session of the State Assembly on June 12.

Stating that Meghalaya is coming up with the Bill, after most of the states have already done it, Sangma said that the timeline which was unanimously agreed in the GST Council for making the GST effective is by July 1.

The Meghalaya Assembly had ratified the Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill, 2014, officially known as the Constitution (101^st Amendment) Act, 2016, related to GST onSeptember 9, last year.

Asked on the benefits of the GST, the chief minister said the states will be compensated if there is short realization of tax in the process of transition into the new GST regime from the Value Added Tax (VAT) regime.

“The factor of 14 per cent increase has been calculated in term of the growth of tax realization. Therefore whether it is a consumer state or producing state in the event of any likelihood of reduced realization of tax, it will be calculated and the state will accordingly be compensated,” he added.

According to him, this has been made legally binding through the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Compensation to States Act which has been already published in Gazette of India.

He also recalled that earlier the issue was discussed during the time of introducing the VAT and the Govt of India agreed that any loss to the states will be compensated.

“Though this was agreed to, but since there was no legal binding on the Union government, the states were not given adequate compensation at that point of time as the projected loss of the state was not agreed by Govt of India,” he said.

Sangma further said but now, there is a robust platform that has been created in which the federal structure is being protected.