Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said he would introduce major reforms for indirect taxes in the form of Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1 next year.
The government was earlier scheduled to introduce GST by April 1 this year.
"I am confident that the government will be in a position to implement DTC (direct tax code) from April 1, 2011. It will be my earnest endeavour to implement GST along with DTC from April 1, 2011," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said during his annual budget speech in the Lok Sabha.
GST is India's most ambitious indirect tax reform, which seeks to bring together a common market and reduce costs to replace the current fragmented tax regime at central and states levels like service tax, excise duty, VAT, cesses, surcharges and local levies.