Know all about Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the people who made it possible

Know all about Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the people who made it possible

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is here and people of the country have accepted it well. GST replaces the taxes levied by the central and state government and have helped in creating a common ground in the market with a single price across the nation along with many benefits of GST. It was first initiated by the NDA government in 2000 led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The main focus with GST implementation is to bring transparency into the system. Talking about its history, NDA made efforts to bring GST into reality in May 2014. Then Mr. Jaitley set the deadline as April 2016 to introduce GST. Later on, the date changed to July 2017.

Talking about GST, the people who made GST a reality are among the influential people of India. To name a few, during a meeting with his advisors, Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee proposed the concept of GST. Three former RBI governors Bimal Jalan, IG Patel and C Rangarajan were also a part of the discussion. In 2000, Vajpayee had formed a committee headed by CPM leader and then West Bengal finance minister Asim Dasgupta to design a GST model. The then Finance Minister of Kerala, KM Mani continued the work after the CPM had left and proposed the advancements in the bill. The congress leader, and then Finance Minister in the UPA-I government, P Chidambaram, pledged to roll out the GST. It was based on the recommendations of the 12th Finance Commission that information of GST was rolled out. He had set the date as April 1, 2010 to bring GST into reality. But the minister was replaced by Pranab Mukherjee as Finance Minister. After that the politics over GST has taken many turns.

It was when KM Mani resigned from the post, the NDA government headed by PM Narendra Modi came into power. West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra was appointed as the head of the GST committee by Arun Jaitley. Mitra is known to have proposed the overview of GST and brought all states on the same page for rolling out the Goods and Services Tax. However, he urged the government to postpone the date of implementation as he thought it needed more standardized approach. On February 2015, Arun Jaitley set April 2016 as the timeline to bring GST into the picture. The date was later changed to July 1, 2017.

To know more about GST and other financial reforms post liberalization, please join us on 14th October 2017 at Asia Pacific Institute of Management. The institute is organizing a National Conference and will have views from the Railway Minister of India, Sh. Suresh Prabhu. You can know more about the details by clicking on the link View More