God and devil lies in the detail of the GST: Congress

New Delhi:  Congress on Wednesday said the "God and the Devil lies in the detail" of the GST and would not like to prejudice the decision of the Council, even as took a dig at the Centre for its "self-congratulatory patting" at beginning of GST journey as nine-tenth of its details are yet to come.
     
"We have merely passed an empowering and enabling legislation. We have not passed an enforceable tax regime. So unless things are decided, there should not be any interface by me from this podium, by pre-empting the decision of that council by a political party.
     
"But certainly there should be no self-congratulatory patting the back by the central government when nine-tenths of the details are yet to come. As we all know, both God and the Devil lies in the details. Let the process start," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told reporters.
     
He said there has been a lot of self-congratulatory patting in the back by the Centre, which is failing to realise that "we are at the beginning of the GST journey, not at the end."
     
Singhvi said almost everything is open and yet to be decided by the GST Council.
     
He said which article is to be exempted and which one to be taxed and what is the minimum rate and what is the maximum rate or are there three rates or one rate or is it uniform or differential, who will be the dispute resolution mechanism, are yet to be decided and hence refrained from commenting on the issue.
    
"Before all that is decided by the newly-constituted Council, no party should comment," he said.

On September 12 the Union Cabinet approved setting up of the GST Council, which will decide on the rate of tax under the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, likely to kick in from April 1, 2017.

The GST Council will consist of Union Finance Minister, Minister of State in charge of Revenue Department and state Finance ministers.