FM Arun Jaitley rejects Congress' demand to cap GST

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday shot down the opposition Congress party's demand to write a cap for the proposed goods and services tax (GST) into the constitution.

After meeting state finance ministers, Jaitley said there was a consensus among states against the Congress party's stand.

The proposed tax reform, country's biggest revenue shake-up since independence in 1947, seeks to replace a slew of central and state levies, transforming the nation of 1.3 billion people into a customs union.

The Congress party, the original author of the tax reform, has said it would back the GST bill if the government agreed to cap the tax rate at 18 percent and create an independent mechanism to resolve disputes on revenue sharing between states.