The proposed Goods and Services Tax will avoid issues of classification of goods and services and overcome tax diversion, revenue leakage and bring a seamless input tax credit. Besides, the GST will be a destination based tax reform measure, with tax set offs available across the production value-chain, both for goods and services.

This view was put forth by experts at the seminar on GST, organized here by the city-based Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) and the office of the Chief Commissioner, Central Excise and Customs, Orissa.

S Dutt Majumdar, member (Central Excise), Central Board of Excise and Customs said, "A well designed GST is the most elegant method of eliminating distortions.

Ideally, there has to be a single rate GST both at the Centre and at the states to avoid tax diversion and help achieve a seamless tax credit."

All the Central taxes including Central Excise Duty (including Additional Excise Duties), Service Tax; Additional Customs Duty, Surcharges and all Cesses and the State level taxes should be subsumed in the GST, as recommended by the Empowered Committee (EC) in its discussion paper in April 2008, he added.

Speaking on the occasion, N B Dhal, Commissioner (commercial tax) urged the Centre to safeguard the interest of the state in all possible ways under a federal tax structure.

Since the size and shape of state economies differ to a great extent, under the new proposed tax regime, adequate safety measures should be built in to the process so that all the states are facilitated to attain equal measures of growth to avert the existing disparities, he suggested.

B K Mohanty, General Secretary, Federation of All Orissa Traders Association; S L Bhut, President, UCCI and Ramesh Mohapatra, Vice-President, UCCI also spoke on the occasion.