NEW DELHI: Congress on Sunday asked that with the Union budget now 40 days away, “will the PM and FM summon the courage to launch a complete overhaul and institute a GST 2.0?”
“The absurdity of three different tax slabs for popcorn under GST… only brings to light a deeper issue: the growing complexity of a system that was supposed to be a Good and Simple Tax,” Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh said in post on X.
Alleging “GST evasion is significant”, he said recent data on “tax frauds uncovered by the directorate general of GST intelligence (DGGI) reveal GST evasion of Rs 2.01 lakh crore in FY24”.
“With the Union budget now just 40 days away, will the PM and FM summon the courage to launch a complete overhaul and institute a GST 2.0?” the Congress functionary asked.
In another post, Ramesh said, “During the discussion on the Constitution, the PM and his colleagues mounted a furious attack on Indira Gandhi for the 42nd Amendment that was passed by Parliament in Dec 1976. What they did not mention was that Indira Gandhi herself, along with other Congress MPs, then voted in favour of the 44th Amendment in Dec 1978, when Morarji Desai was PM,” Ramesh said.
“The 44th Amendment removed a number of provisions introduced through the 42nd Amendment. The PM and his colleagues also did not mention the fact that many of the provisions of the 42nd Amendment have been retained ever since it was enacted almost half a century ago,” the Congress neta added.
Ramesh went on to list the provisions that were retained. “These include the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ in the Preamble that have been recently held by the Supreme Court to be part of the basic structure of the Constitution,” he said.
