Chids make Jaitley ‘red-faced’ in RS over GST debate

He bounced back strongly on the floor of the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday afternoon reminding his colleague in Parliament and successor, Arun Jaitley that his government did not do much homework towards drafting of the GST Bill. It was P Chidambaram's day--which in fact could have been Jaitley's. Calling the GST Bill draft by the incumbent Finance Minister and his team as 'clumsy,' the former Finance Minister also stressed on the immediate need of fixing the tax rate and not taking it beyond 18 per cent as earlier suggested by the country's Chief Economic Advisor, Arvind Subramanian. A red-faced Jaitley could not utter a single word in protest and had to hear each of the word his predecessor spoke on the floor of the Rajya Sabha this afternoon. It showed how much unprepared the present government in the Centre is even after raising much-hype over GST Bill and making attempts to snatch all the credit for the same. Time and again during his speech, Chidambaram referred to earlier draft of the Bill way back in 2011 when Pranab Mukherjee was holding the charge of Finance Ministry. Calling the 2011 draft much superior in nature and 'almost perfect,' Chidambaram urged Jaitley to revise the GST amendment to strengthen dispute resolution mechanism. During his speech he also clarified that Congress party never opposed the idea of the Bill but opposed certain ingredients, part of the draft Bill.  The former Finance Minister also appreciated the steps taken by Jaitley's party and government in last few weeks engaging all the political parties in a conversation related to passage of the GST Bill in Rajya Sabha and thus finally paving the way to a new set of laws. Saying that GST should also mean Good Senses Triumph, the senior Congress leader emphasised on the facts why the rate of tax should not be over 18 per cent referring to CEA's recent report, which mentions high economy countries in the world have such indirect taxes charged at maximum 16.8 per cent while emerging economies worldwide do not have a record of such taxes charged at over 14.1 per cent.

Before Chidambaram spoke, Jaitley in his speech talked about empowering the states through the GST while also mentioning that there would not be any ‘tax’ on the ‘tax.’ Jaitley also said with introduction of a uniform tax rate, there would be a seamless transfer of goods and services across the country.