New Delhi, Jan 16 (UNI) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today announced that the date for effective implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been deferred to July 1, 2017, since the final draft and getting approval from the Legislative bodies is yet to be done. Earlier, the government had fixed April 1, 2017 for its effective implementation. Addressing the mediapersons after GST Council Meeting Mr Jaitley today said, “The next GST Council meeting will be held on February 18 to approve drafts of supplementary legislations. There was a broad view that the 1st of July appears to be more realistic since its transactional tax can be introduced any time.” Over the contentious issue of tax collections between the Centre and state, a formula was devised in the meeting that all assesses with GST turnover of Rs 1.5 crore or less, 90 per cent of them will be assessed by States and 10 per cent by administrative machinery of the Centre. While those who have turnover of over Rs 1.5 crore would be assessed in the ratio of 50:50 between the Centre and the state. “A major point of dispute has been who will assess -and therefore tax - businesses and entities with annual earnings of upto 1.5 crore. Ninety per cent of this category will be handled by the states, and the rest by the Centre, said the minister. He also said all the states agreed on the proposal except West Bengal. On territorial waters tax collections dispute, Mr Jaitley said as far as the area of 12 nautical miles into the territorial waters is concerned, it is a part of the Union government territory but as per convention, the states will be empowered to collect tax on any economic activity in this territory. UNI ASH RSA SNU 1931