Mumbai:
The Union finance ministry and the empowered committee
of state finance ministers on value added tax (VAT) will
try to iron out their differences over a compensation
package in a week''s time. This will enable states to implement
a phased reduction of central sales tax beginning October
1.
The
finance ministry and the state finance ministers panel
on VAT have differences over the compensation package
and both sides will try to iron them out, VAT panel chairman
Asim Dasgupta said after meeting finance minister P Chidambaram.
"We
are trying hard from both sides to converge to an agreed
compensation package. Our meeting in that sense is fruitful.
There were some difference of opinion. We are trying to
iron out those differences," he said.
Finance
minister''s advisor Parthasarthi Shome and VAT panel secretary
Satish Chandra are working on an agreed compensation package,
he said, adding, "In seven days'' time, we will meet
again with
an objective to attain covergence to agreed compensation
package."
While
the finance minister merely said there would be another
meeting, Dasgupta said he was confident that the CST phase-out
would start from October 1.
|