Goods and Services Tax

Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a part of the proposed tax reforms that center round evolving an efficient and harmonized consumption tax system in the country. Presently, there are parallel systems of indirect taxation at the central and state levels. Each of the systems needs to be reformed to eventually harmonize them.

In the Union Budget for the year 2006-2007, Finance Minister has proposed that India should move towards national level Goods and Services Tax that should be shared between the Centre and the States. He has proposed to set April 1, 2010 as the date for introducing GST. World over, goods and services attract the same rate of tax. That is the foundation of a GST. The first step towards introducing GST is to progressively converge the service tax rate and the CENVAT rate.