Congress vows to scrap NITI Aayog, simple GST 2.0 in election manifesto

New Delhi: Indian National Congress (INC) on Tuesday released the party manifesto. The 55-page manifesto promises more jobs, better infrastructure, tax reforms, judicial reforms, economic policy, minimum income support programme Nyuntam Aay Yojana and more. Rahul Gandhi described it as the “voice of people”.

The manifesto states that the two major taxes which will be the backbone of the economy are Income Tax and Goods and Services Tax. Congress promises to end tax terrorism by enacting Direct Taxes Code which will allow simplicity, transparency, tax equity, easy compliance and impartiality in the tax administration. The party also promised to levy taxes at reasonable and progressive rates.

Regarding GST, the party stated in the manifesto that it will review and replace the current GST laws with the GST 2.0 regime that will “truly reflect the intent and purpose of a non-cascading, value-added, indirect tax.” It further stated that The GST 2.0 regime will be based on a single, moderate, standard rate of tax on all goods and services. The rate will be revenue neutral to the current indirect tax revenues of the Central and State Governments and will take note of the potential of GST 2.0 to boost their tax revenues.

Congress also promised that Real Estate (all sectors), Petroleum Products, Tobacco and Liquor will be brought within the ambit of GST 2.0 in a manner and time period not exceeding 2 years agreed to in the GST Council. Also, essential goods of mass consumption (such as food grains, lifesaving drugs, vaccines, etc.) and essential services will be exempted from GST 2.0
or zero-rated.

The party further promised to scrap Niti Aayog stating that it has “proved to be a noisy and incompetent intermeddler.” Congress promised to constitute a Planning Commission will be a lean organisation with renowned economists and financial experts as members assisted by a small but high-quality team of scholars from different fields and support staff totalling a maximum of 100 persons. The manifesto went on to state the new commission will have re-defined responsibilities such as to formulate medium and long-term perspective plans and to function as an independent expert body to perform crucial functions in a federal
system.