Corporate Tax to be Reduced and GST to be Implemented

While presenting the union budget for 2015-16 on Saturday, Jaitley, however, said the reduction has to be accompanied by rationalization and removal of various kinds of exemptions and incentives which is leading to a large number of tax disputes.

He pointed out that the effective collection of Corporate Tax today is about 23 per cent.

The Finance Minister said he did not start the process of reduction right away as he wanted to give advance notice that these changes will start from the next financial year.

Jaitley also said his government is moving forward on various fronts to implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) from the next year. GST, on which his government introduced a Bill in the last session of the parliament, is expected to play a transformative role in the way our economy functions.

" It will add buoyancy to our economy by developing a common Indian market and reducing the cascading effect on the cost of goods and services," he added.

As part of the movement towards GST the Education Cess and the Secondary and Higher Education Cess are to be subsumed in the Central Excise Duty, Jaitley said.