Sanand Ramakrishnan's blog

In my previous post on GST, I had explained the power of the Constitution to make laws pertaining to it and discussed the apprehensions between the Centre and the State in devising laws pertaining to GST.

 In India, the profession of law is one of honour and it goes beyond the role of lawyers, their duties or their manner of functioning in courts and even the details of professional etiquette. Lawyers in India emerge as the facilitators in the administration of justice because they present the legal and factual aspects of a case to a judge and clarify points based on technical accuracy of legal principles before the Judge, sometimes forcefully and sometimes persuasively.

In my first write-up on implementation of GST in India, I identified its key features that were expected to boost the current tax regime. Part of this discussion is to explain the dilemma faced by states in implementing the GST. Till now, the tax bases of the Centre and that of the States were more or less clearly earmarked in the Constitution of India.

In the Union Budget of 2006-2007, the Finance Minister P.Chidamabaram had strongly urged India to adopt the Goods and Service Tax (GST) regime in place of the current tax regime. This was based on the ground that it will greatly contribute to the buoyancy of tax revenues and acceleration of growth. The date, 01^st April, 2010 was set as the likely date on which the GST regime would be implemented. However, now it is most likely to be introduced on 01.04.2011.