On the completion of one year of the rolling out of the GST plan, the government celebrated GST Day today at the Ambedkar International Centre to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the new indirect taxation regime. Terming GST as a "fitting tribute to spirit of cooperative federalism", the Finance Ministry had yesterday said the first year has been remarkable both for the sheer variety of challenges that its implementation had thrown up and for the willingness and ability of policy makers and tax administrators to rise up to these challenges and respond befittingly. PM Modi and other Union ministers congratulated the nation on the occasion.
Here are the live updates of GST Day celebrations:
"I am confident that the best implementation of GST is yet to come": Arun Jaitley
"Total tax base itself has increased significantly. These are the changes taking place on account of GST implementation. As tax collection goes up, capacity to rationalize rates will increase. I have no doubt in mind that the total basket of taxes, last 4 years have shown 1.5% increase. I was in Singapore last year, and they asked me why we have multiple slabs. I said, you are a city state. We can't afford to tax food like you. Therefore we have to keep vulnerable out of the tax system," Arun Jaitley said.
"Despite challenges, we had a direct tax increase of 18% last year. First quarter of this year shows personal income tax collection has increased 45%. Remarkable changes taking place with GST," Mr Jaitley said.
"We had 27 meeting of council so far. It has become role model of governance. It is India's first federal decision making body and I made sure that all decisions were with a consensus": Arun Jaitley
"No reform of this magnitude is possible if the head of country is not with you. We had support of the PM," Mr Jaitley said.
"Today marks 1st anniversary of monumental economic reform. We had complicated, clumsy tax systems. Each state required a separate return. India had a fragmented market and it needed this system," Aryn Jaitley said.
GST truly a people's tax, says Dharmendra Pradhan
GST Helpline Number For Consumers Soon
Union Minister Piyush Goyal has said that a telephone helpline number will be started soon, where consumers can report against those traders who evade tax by not issuing purchase bill.
