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Panel for early talks on VAT

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JULY 7. With the Centre maintaining that the countrywide Value Added Tax (VAT) would be implemented only after consultations with various political parties and other organisations which have opposed to the new tax regime, the Empowered Committee of the State Finance Ministers today met here to push for early consultation.

Though today's meeting was described as `stock-taking,' the committee convener and West Bengal Finance Minister, Asim Dasgupta, told presspersons later that a meeting with the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, was being sought within a fortnight.

"It is a very major decision for the country as a whole and when it is implemented, we want the acceptance to be total. We will meet the Finance Minister within a fortnight to set the date for a meeting with the major political parties. The timing and details of VAT implementation would be worked out only after the discussions with political parties,'' he said.

Some twentytwo States have sent their VAT legislation to the Centre for Presidential assent but in most cases some amendments are required. So far, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Assam, Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu and Haryana intend to switch over to the new tax regime which is said to be more transparent and avoids the cascading effect of taxes. The State Governments also expect to realise more revenue because of the expected better compliance. But many of them failed to get the President's nod for their VAT Bills while others did not even get them passed once the Centre's intention to delay it became evident.

About today's meeting, the Madhya Pradesh Finance Minister, Ajay Mushran, said that old points were reiterated and nothing substantial and definite emerged. ''Whatever decisions we took in the last meeting on the rates of VAT on different items and the rules and guidelines have remained unchanged,'' he added.

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