New Delhi: Moving the Goods and Services Tax Bill in the lower house of the parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that henceforth it will become easier for everyone to do business in India.
The minister who moved the GST bill in Lok Sabha after it was passed by the Rajya Sabha with full majority last week added that the bill will keep a check on leaks in the supply chain.
"The Centre had addressed the concerns of all states on the GST and that the rates of taxation will be decided by the GST Council, that will be headed by representatives from Centre and state," Jaitley added.
He said any decision of the GST Council will be passed by three-fourths of its members, wherein the states will control two-thirds of the votes and the Centre the remaining one third.
"There is an inherent mechanism for states to veto the Centre and the central government too will be able to veto the states,"Jaitley explained.
"It is as if this house (Lok Sabha) does not have the brains," Congress member M. Veerappa Moily said while initiating a debate on the GST Bill.
Moily, a former union minister, said: "Democracy does not mean majority. You bulldozed our suggestion in this house when we demanded a joint committee to examine the GST. I had personally raised it," Moily said referring to the delay in the whole process.
"The Congress fully supports the GST. But it is too early to call the GST Bill a game changer," Moily said.
Moving the bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday, Jaitley said the amended provisions in the constitutional amendment bill for Goods and Services Tax, as passed by the Rajya Sabha, reflected near unanimity and that the new uniform tax law will lead to an "integrated market".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in the Lok Sabha when Jaitley and Congress leader Moily spoke on the bill.
Trinamool Congress member Kalyan Banerjee said his party had been supporting the GST for the last one decade and wondered why it was "stalled" for so long.
The new bill, his party believes, will help small and medium entrepreneurs, Banerjee said.
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