Centre to compensate States for their revenue losses: Pranab Mukherjee

New Delhi, July 21 (ANI): Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday said that the Central Government will compensate the States for their revenue losses on account of Central Sales Tax (CST) reduction during the year 2009-10 and release the balance outstanding amount to the States immediately.

Pranab Mukherjee said that Information Technology could be used to minimized physical interface between the taxpayer and the administration.

He also said the Central Government would provide all the support and assistance required to achieve homogeneity in the level of computerization across States.

"On exemptions, we have decided to review the existing exemptions from Central Excise duty so that the list of goods exempt from Central Goods and Service Tax (CGST) is aligned to the State Goods and Service Tax (SGST) list and 99 items currently exempt from VAT are exempt from both components of GST," said Mukherjee in the meeting of the Empowered Committee of the State Finance Ministers.

Mukherjee also said that on April 1, 2011, the Central Government proposes to keep CGST lower rate for goods at six percent and standard rate at 10 percent. The services will be charged at eight percent.

Earlier Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India, proposed a detailed roadmap and strategy for putting in place the requisite IT Infrastructure to handle work related to GST. (ANI)