Kerala will levy a 1% cess on most goods and services in the state from 1 June to raise funds to rebuild the state from the devastation wreaked by last year’s floods.
The state had secured the permission from federal indirect tax body, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, to levy the cess, which was subsequently announced in the state budget for FY19-20. The state intends to raise about ₹600 crore from the cess. The date of roll out of the cess was announced on Monday through a notification.
Kerala decided to go for the cess, an unprecedented move in the GST era where numerous central and state taxes were subsumed into a unified national sales tax, as it had limited resources to rebuild the state.