&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "GST reforms: PM Modi slams Congress for taxing children's toffees, Sitharaman asks 'You want Gutkha taxed at 5%'?")
India's Goods and Services Tax (GST) council announced a major overhaul in the tax regime on Wednesday (Sep 3) by cutting four slabs down to two and introducing a special 40 per cent tax slab for sin goods. The Council scrapped the 12% and 28% rates, retaining only the 5% and 18% slabs. All items under 12 and 28 per cent tax slabs migrated under 5 and 18 per cent bracket or were put in tax-free categories. Items such as pan masala gutkha, cigarettes, chewing tobacco products like zarda, unmanufactured tobacco and bidi, are placed under the special tax slab of 40 per cent.
As the new GST reforms were announced, Congress criticised the ruling BJP and repeated its old' Gabbar Singh Tax' taunt for PM Modi's tax regime. Responding to this, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked if the Congress party wants gutkha to be put under a lower tax bracket? Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the party, saying that they taxed 'children's toffee. “The Congress even taxed children’s toffees. If Modi had done this, they would have pulled my hair out,” the Prime Minister said, recalling how high levies under the previous government inflated household budgets.
A day earlier, Sitharaman slammed Congress and asked if they want “tobacco and gutkha to be taxed at just 5% GST?” "I fail to understand this. During their tenure, the Congress party believed implementing GST was impossible because states didn't trust the central government. That's why they couldn't implement it. Now were are implementing it then also they have a problem. I do not know what word I should use for the Congress. They should make up their mind whether they want to oppose it or support it," she added.
