Centre, state and UTs should evolve a consensus on lines of GST: Assocham

Industry body Assocham on Monday urged the Centre, states and all union territories to evolve a consensus on the lines of the Goods and Services Tax for shifting the financial year to January-December period.

The chamber noted that all states and union territories should switch to the new financial year uniformly once a broad-based consensus is evolved on the issue to reduce the hassles of trade and industry.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month had pitched for shifting to a January-December fiscal year. Addressing the Niti Aayog Governing Council's third meeting, which was attended by several state chief ministers, Modi said for long, India had suffered from economic and political mismanagement.

The prime minister asked the states to take the initiative in this regard.

Earlier this month, Madhya Pradesh became the first state to shift to the January-December financial year from the present April-March cycle.

"For pan-India businesses, the accounting standards and the financial year of all the government organisations should be uniform. We should not have a situation where the industry and trade has one set of books for Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and the other for Uttar Pradesh and yet another for the Central government," Assocham said.

It said if all the states and the Centre agree to a shift of the financial year from April-March to January-December, NITI Aayog should work towards building a consensus and then, "let the entire country shift towards the calendar year becoming the financial year in one go".

The Goods and Services Tax, which will subsume central excise, service tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) and other local levies, is scheduled to be rolled out from July 1.

"At this point in time, if some select states choose to shift their fiscal year to a new system, it could be quite a task for the trade and industry; first to comply with the GST, then to align with the financial years of different states.

Uniformity is the key, whatever is the financial year, that is critical," Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said. He argued that although states have constitutional right to have their accounting methods, for the sake of ease of doing business and ease of convenience to the common citizens, uniformity is essential.

The government had appointed a four-member panel headed by former chief economic adviser Shankar Acharya to examine the feasibility of changing India's financial year.