With diverse political governance in the country, states are inching towards creating a single common market in the country through Goods and Services Tax (GST), Chairman of Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers KM Mani said on Friday.
“It is a stupendous achievement that all the states with so much diversity. Diverse political governance has come under the umbrella of the Empowered Committee of Finance Ministers and inching forward towards creating a single common market in the country,” Mani told the reporters at a press conference, organised by the Indirect Taxes Committee of ICAI here.
Mani said GST is a major tax reform and it should benefit the final consumer and the public without affecting resources of the states. “The Committee is in the process of discussing and arriving at consensus on large number of issues of GST,” he added.
The Empowered Committee, Mani said, has been called by the Select Committee of Rajya Sabha to represent its views on the GST on June 16. The Constitutional Amendment Bill for rolling out of GST was referred to the Select Committee, while the lok Sabha has already cleared the Bill. The Select Committee is scrutinising the bill.
Meanwhile, Mani advised the chartered accountants that they should prepare their clients to remit whatever is due to the Government and should dispel the impression that their job is to teach them how to evade taxes. “Rightly or wrongly there is a misunderstanding among people that the function of the chartered accountant is to teach his client how to escape the tax. My humble request is that you should teach and prepare your client to remit whatever his due is to the Government. That should be your long-run duty,” he added.