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Video Editor: Vishal Kumar
Stressing on India’s successful implementation of the major indirect tax reform – the Goods and Services Tax (GST) – without too much of hiccups, Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday, 1 July, said the best of the new regime in terms of contribution to the society was yet to come.
The government rolled out GST, which includes 17 indirect taxes and multiple cesses, on the intervening night of 30 June and 1 July last year.
At a function to mark the completion of one year of the new tax reform, Jaitley said via video conferencing:
Observing that countries implementing GST had witnessed major disruption, Jaitley said he too had felt that it would cause disruption in the Indian economy, “I myself used to use the word disruptive when it came to major reform like GST because it takes time to settle down. But after one year of experience, I’m not too sure whether I can use the word disruptive for GST reform.”
Meanwhile, Union Minister Piyush Goyal, at the GST Day celebrations praised the system stating “Goods & Service Tax has long term benefits for the economy. I would like to thank all political parties and leaders for their cooperation on GST. It has brought transparency”
While the finance ministers of the current government basked in the glory of their reform, former finance minister P Chidambaram held a different opinion. “Govt did bad things in a big way - demonetisation, or big things in a bad way - GST. The design, structure, infrastructure backbone, rates & implementation of GST were so flawed that GST has become a bad word among businesspersons, traders, exporters & common citizens,” he said.
(With inputs from PTI, ANI.)
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