New Delhi: A day after reaching a consensus on rates, the GST Council on Friday failed to arrive at an agreement over the crucial issue of administrative control over assessees under the new indirect tax regime.
“No decision was taken,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said after the meeting.
He said two models were discussed to divide the administrative control between the union and state governments. One of these was the horizontal model, whereby states will have sole control over entities generating up to Rs 1.5 crore of turnover a year and dual control of the Centre and states over this level.
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The other model was vertical whereby both the Centre and states will have control over assessees right from the beginning. This model is called “cross empowerment” too.
Now, the union and state finance ministers will meet on November 20 to thrash out the issue, but it will not be a GST Council meeting. The meeting will try to evolve a political consensus.
The GST Council meetings, earlier called for November 9 and 10, have been put off until November 24 and 25. Those meetings will discuss model GST Bills.
When asked whether the government will be able to meet the April one, 2017 target to roll out GST under this scenario, Jaitley said,”We hope so.”
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The earlier agreement reached between the Centre and states over horizontal model had broken down after states expressed keenness to have control over service tax assessees in certain areas such as entertainment tax.