Soon after the seventh meeting of the Goods and Services Tax Council last week, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said only one difficult issue remains pending to enable the implementation of the new indirect tax regime. The Centre is determined to introduce the GST from April 1, 2017, and given the time constraints posed by that deadline, Mr. Jaitley expressed hope that States would rise to the occasion and help resolve the issue. It can be safely assumed he was referring to the turf battle between the Centre and States on sharing administrative powers over taxpayers in the new system, even if this is not the only hurdle left to cross. This was the first time the Council met after the washed-out winter session of Parliament, with no movement on four enabling GST legislations. Over two days last week, the Council managed to clear the current drafts of the Centre and State GST Bills and agreed on a two-monthly compensation payout to States, instead of a quarterly one, for revenue losses th...