Stressing that the Congress will press for reduction in GST rates and demand a cap of 18 per cent, senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said that GST rollout should have been delayed by atleast two months and GST Network (GSTN) should have undergone a dry run before implementation.
He said the aim was that one indirect tax will subsume all other indirect taxes but this GST fails to achieve that. The Congress demanded that real estate, electricity and petroleum products be brought under GST. "The Modi Government's GST law is "very, very imperfect" and cannot be labelled "one nation, one tax" as it has seven or more tax rates," Chidambaram said at AICC Press conference.
He said that Congress will press for reduction in tax rates and demand a cap of 18 percent, besides seeking to bring petroleum, electricity and real estate under the new tax regime. "This is a very, very imperfect law. This is not the GST which we (the UPA) had envisaged...What has been implemented, however, is a GST with seven, or possibly more, rates. It is a mockery of GST. When we have rates like 0.25, 3, 5, 12, 18, 28 and 40, and possibly more because of the discretion vested with state Governments, how can we call this a 'one nation, one tax' regimeIJ" he asked.
Chidambaram said the Congress would continue to watch the roll-out of GST and articulate the fears and grievances of small and medium size and multi-state businesses and consumers. He noted that authorities and businesses were "unprepared or underprepared" for the roll-out of the tax regime and said its launch should have been deferred by two months and the GSTN should have been put through a trial run.
He said the party would hold meetings and conferences across the country to highlight that the Congress was the "original proponent" of the GST and campaign for bringing a "true GST".
According to Chidambaram, BJP leader and former finance Minister Yashwant Sinha had also confirmed that this was not the GST envisaged by the first NDA regime led by AB Vajpayee.