Former Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram has said that his successor Mr. Arun Jaitley “slipped” when he told Parliament on Tuesday that the Centre does not share Service Tax revenues with States.

“[The] FM was wrong… He slipped. All taxes including Service Tax are shared,” Mr. Chidambaram said in a text message.

Rebuttal in Twitter
Mr. Chidambaram later took to Twitter to refute Mr. Jaitley’s response to the first question in the Rajya Sabha for the day in which the Minister said that since, as per the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, Service Tax was not shared with States, it would be in their interest for the Upper House to pass the Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill, which is meant for the rollout of the Goods & Services Tax (GST).

“As per the 14th Finance Commission, service tax is not shared with states…The earlier you pass the GST, the better it is for states so that they get a share in the Service Tax,” Mr. Jaitley said. Mr. Chidambaram, who was elected to the upper house from the state of Maharashtra, is among the 43 members in the House who took oath on Monday. Some of these are newly-elected, while others were re-elected.

Credit given
In his efforts to win the support of the congress in the House for the passage of the Bill, Mr. Jaitley has, on a number of occasions, given credit for initiating the long-pending tax reform to his predecessor.