The National Assembly is firm on adopting Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill 2020 this session. The House, today, with 39 votes rejected the National Council’s recommendation to withdraw the adoption of the GST Bill 2020.
The National Council recommended withdrawing the Bill to refrain from willful violation of Section 46(b) of the Public Finance (Amendment) Act 2012 and until all necessary systems are put in place. The House has also raised the issue on the need to make a clear distinction between Money Bill and Financial Bill.
The Assembly has set two enforcement dates. Chapter 7,8,9 and 10 will be enforced from 1st July 2021 and Chapter 1 to 6, and 11 to 30 from the day enacting the Bill as Law which according to the National Council is unprecedented and in violation of the Public Finance Act.
However, the Finance Minister states that adoption of the GST bill is in line with the Constitution.
“When it comes to Money Bill, we have to base it on Constitution and Public Finance Act and coordinated interpretation of these laws are important. Instead of saying this violates one Law and coordinates with another law, we have to look in the Constitution, the mother of all laws. The interpretation of the Constitution is clearly stated in acts related to Ministry and organisation. We all have to understand it uniformly,” said Namgay Tshering, the Finance Minister.
The council has also questioned the preparedness of the government for immediate implementation when the development of application software is still underway.
“We are prepared. The only thing left to do is develop the software. If the Finance Ministry is ready, we would’ve started the implementation by July this year but the tendering of software held us back, we almost gave it to outsiders and they would have done it in 6 months. We have kept Nu 573 M for this. But I thought if Bhutanese could develop it, we can retain the budget within our country and give Bhutanese an opportunity,” said Dr Lotay Tshering, the Prime Minister.
“GST is a new Act and I haven’t seen cases in other countries except for a few countries where the government is fully prepared to implement the Bill and then adopt the Bill later. Since we presented the GST Bill here and had major tax reforms, it wouldn’t be wise to fix the rates later. That’s why we are trying to adopt both the reforms and rates together in this session,” the Finance Minister added.
The National Council also recommended introducing the amendment of the Public Finance Act 2012 and the Government is directed to look into introducing the Act for amendment.
Sangay Chezom
