The Congress said the government's handling of the important tax reform was "amateur".
Highlights
- Congress said Centre lost opportunity to have uncomplicated tax regime
- Said failure resulted from incompetence of a 'panic-stricken government'
- Government lost in the chaos of its own making: Randeep Surjewala
Keeping up the pressure on the government for the disruption caused due to the Goods and Services Tax, the Congress on Saturday welcomed the "interim relief" cleared by the GST council yesterday but stressed the government had "utterly failed" to address the structural problems of the tax regime.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the bitter truth was that the government has lost the opportunity to have an uncomplicated tax regime due to the "sheer incompetence" of a "panic-stricken government... lost in the chaos of its own making".
The crux of his criticism was centered on the Congress' insistence that the purpose of its version of the GST was to have a tax regime that would be transparent, uncomplicated.
The Congress had renewed its attack over GST after BJP veteran Yashwant Sinha lacerating criticism of the government's handling of the economy last month and had assessed the new indirect tax regime to be "badly conceived and poorly implemented".
"In the classical BJP-style of 'we know it all', they first even refused to acknowledge the clutter, confusion and cost to the economy by botching up GST concept and its implementation," Mr Surjewala said.
Yesterday, the GST Council headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had attempted to simplify compliance rules for small businesses, made it easier for exporters to get refunds and cut tax rates on 27 items.
The Congress says much of what the government has tried to fix had been pointed out by the party long back. But the government - that had been in denial mode so far - conceded there were problems only after the economy run to the ground.