New Delhi, December 25: The Congress on Tuesday said it would ring in “Goods and Service Tax-2” by scrapping the one in vogue, should it come to power in the 2019 general elections.
In a move which will evince keen interest from stakeholders, the party put forward its Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal on a national scale to make the major announcement.
Making a case against the GST, Badal said Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is Chairperson of the GST Council, has told him he wants a Congress representative to fill up the post of Deputy Chairperson of the body as the party is a principal Opposition in Lok Sabha.
Jaitley would soon talk to Congress leadership in the matter, he added. The post has been lying vacant since the GST was rolled out more than year ago. Badal said the GST is beyond redemption on account of multifaceted flaws in it.
“No amount of patchwork can salvage it,” Badal said referring to the last meeting of the GST Council (held on December 22) in which tax rates of many items were reduced.
Owing to the defects, all hell broke loose after the law was rolled out, forcing the Congress to term it “draconian” and “Gabbar Singh Tax”, referring to the neologism coined by party president Rahul Gandhi.
Referring to recent reduction in tax rates, the Congress took a potshot at the government, saying: “Better late than never. The Modi government has at last seen sense, in the consistent stance of the Congress party.”
In response to a question on inclusion of high-end luxury products like SUVs in the same tax slab of utilitarian goods, he said there could be two or three rates. He reiterated the Congress demand for inclusion of petroleum and electricity in GST ambit.
He said the next GST Council meet could include consideration of composition of service tax payers.
