Many major decisions were taken in the GST Council meeting, in which it was decided to remove 2 slabs. Now only two slabs will remain, which are 18 and 5 percent. After the decision, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has reacted. He posted on X and wrote that for almost a decade, the Indian National Congress has been demanding simplification of GST. The Modi government had made One Nation, One Tax one Nation, 9 taxes, which included tax slabs of 0%, 5%, 12%, 18%, 28%and had special rates of 0.25%, 1.5%, 3%and 6%.
Mallikarjun Kharge said that in the last 5 years, income tax recovery increased by 240% and GST recovery increased by 177%. It is a good thing that on the right GST for 8 years late, the Modi government’s Kumbhakaran woke up and he has woken up and talked about Rate Rationalization. All states should be given a compensation for a period of 5 years, considering 2024-25 as the base year, as the rates cut are sure to adversely affect their revenue. Complex compliances of GST will also have to be eliminated, only then MSMES and small industries will be benefited.
Congress party manifesto
Mallikarjun Kharge said that the Congress party had demanded GST 2.0 in its 2019 and 2024 manifestos with a simple and rational tax system. We also sought to simplify the complex compliances of GST, which affected MSMES and small business badly. On 28 February 2005, the Congress-UPA government made a formal announcement of GST in the Lok Sabha. In 2011, when the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee brought GST Bill, the BJP opposed it. When Modi ji was the Chief Minister, he strongly opposed GST. Today, this BJP government celebrates record GST collections, as if it has done a big job by recovering tax from the general public.
Congress president targets BJP
Accusing the BJP, the Congress President said that for the first time in the history of the country, farmers have been taxed. This Modi government imposed GST on at least 36 items in the agriculture sector. The Modi government imposed GST tax on everyday things like milk-curd, flour-anaz, even children’s pencil books, oxygen, insurance and hospital expenses. That is why we named this GST of BJP as Gabbar Singh Tax. Two-thirds of the total GST i.e. 64% of the GST comes from the pocket of the poor and middle class, but only 3% GST is charged from the billionaires, while the rate of corporate tax has been reduced from 30% to 22%.
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