No consensus at GST Council, next meet on 11-12 December: Kerala FM

New Delhi: The GST Council on Saturday failed to reach consensus on the contentious issue of dual control and will meet again on 11 and 12 December to hammer out the differences. “There is no consensus… we were not able to arrive at a consensus regarding the cross empowerment model. Therefore, the GST laws could not be completed. No compensation law is taken up, but the formula has arrived and we will rediscuss them,” Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Issac told reporters in New Delhi after the two-day meeting. The next meeting of the Council, according to an official, will be on 11 and 12 December. The fifth meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state finance ministers, ended on Saturday. The Centre intends to implement GST from 1 April next year. Due to Constitutional compulsion, the GST has to be rolled out by 16 September, 2017, as the existing indirect taxes will come to an end and it would not be possible for either the Centre or states to collect the taxes. The GST Council is supposed to finalise the model GST, Integrated GST (IGST) and compensation laws.