President Pranab Mukherjee gave assent to Constitution Amendment Bill on Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The passage of the bill will pave the way for setting up of a GST council that will decide the tax rate, cess and surcharges.
The GST is a single indirect tax which will subsume most of the central and state taxes such as Value Added Tax (VAT), excise duty, service tax, central sales tax, additional customs duty and special additional duty of customs.
The Parliament had on August 8 passed the bill which was then circulated to state governments seeking its ratification. A Constitution amendment bill needs to be ratified by the legislative Assemblies of at least 50 per cent of the states.
The bill was sent to the President’s secretariat after as many as 17 states ratified the bill.
The other states which have passed the legislation include Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Nagaland, Maharashtra, Haryana, Sikkim, Mizoram, Telangana, Goa, Odisha and Rajasthan.
Now that the bill has got Presidential assent, the government will notify the GST Council, which will decide on the tax rate.
Headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the Council will comprise state Finance Ministers.
The states and the Centre are working overtime and talking to stakeholders to draft the Central GST, State GST and Integrated GST laws, which are to be passed in the Winter Session of Parliament.