Goods and Services Tax– Would there be dual control?

In the past couple of weeks, I have been interacting with a few trade associations on the impact of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The question often raised is whether there would be dual control by both the central and state government in the GST era. Further, for traders currently dealing with the State VAT department sole, would they, now, fall within the purview of the aegis of the central government? Lastly, would the ease of doing business be simpler in the GST regime?

A brief

The Finance Ministry in its GST FAQs released in August 2016 has clarified that keeping in mind the federal structure of India, there would be two components of GST– Central GST (CGST”) and State GST (SGST). Consequently, both the centre and the state would simultaneously levy GST across the value chain. The centre would levy and collect CSGST, while the State would levy and collect SGST on all transactions within a state. The input tax credit of CGST would be available for discharging the CGST liability on the output at each stage, while SGST would be available for discharging the SGST liability on the output at each stage. Further, no cross-utilization of credit is permissible.

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