Moving at jet speed to roll out the goods and services tax (GST) from April 1 next year, the government has approved the formation of GST council that will decide tax rate and floors, threshold limit for small businesses, cess, surcharge and exemption, among others, in the new indirect tax regime. The council would be a joint forum of Centre and states with Union finance minister as its chairman. The minister of state for finance at the Centre and the ministers in charge of finance and taxation in states will be the other members of this federal body. The Centre will have one-third weight in the council with states holding the remaining two-third. The decisions will be passed by three-fourth of members to ensure consensus. The first meeting of the council has been scheduled on September 22-23 in the capital with a target to thrash out the pending issues pertaining to contentious issues like administrative control over small traders in the next two months. The swift decisions on legislative and procedural issues related to the new tax structure are expected to give corporates time to gear up for the migration to GST that is billed as biggest economic reform since 1991. The GST would subsume most of the indirect taxes including service tax, VAT and entry tax levied by Centre and states and turn India into a common market with uniform tax across states. It is expected to boost GDP by 1-2 per cent. Following the go-ahead from the Union cabinet on Monday for setting up the apex body, an official statement noted that the steps required for implementing GST had so far been taken ahead of schedule. “As far as the administrative requirement is concerned, we are fully geared up for that. The Government of India is also monitoring IT implementation at the state level. As far as IT preparedness is concerned, we are fully on track,” revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia told reporters in a press briefing after cabinet decision. While government has stuck to the original deadline for launching the GST, industry chambers and trade bodies have sought to shift the date further to at least 6 months for aligning their IT infrastructure to the new system. Adhia, however, said that government had so far not received a formal request from the industry. The work on GST is progressing at unusually fast face. Within a week of Rajya Sabha passing the constitution amendment bill, the Lok Sabha approved the amendments on August 8. As many as 16 states ratified it in 23 days as against a target of 30 days and the bill was sent for Presidential assent. Following the cabinet approval for GST Council today, the president is expected to constitute this body in next 7 days. “It is necessary that there is clarity on rates and various other provisions for the industry to prepare itself, hence it is good to see the cabinet approving the creation of the GST council within a few days of Presidential assent of the Constitution amendment bill,” said MS Mani, senior director at Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP. “This power packed performance of the government indicates the motivation with which government is tirelessly working towards the early implementation of GST in India. Keeping in view the leap taken by government in completing the legal formalities, the target date of 1 April, 2017 now seems achievable,” said Rajat Mohan, director (indirect taxation) at Delhi-based law firm Nangia & Co. The government hopes that all the issues pertaining to the principles that govern place of supply, threshold limits, GST rates including the floor rates with bands, special rates for raising additional resources would be decided by November 22. The GST council would now recommend Model GST laws based on which Centre will legislate Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) with individual states passing the State GST (SGSTs).