A proposal to replace scrapping income tax and some other taxes with a single tax is attractive but will not be easy to implement, senior BJP leader Arun Jaitely said.

Mr.  Jaitley said that implementing a single tax would not be easy for the government to implement due to the federal structure of the country.

Speaking on the topic, he said, "At present, society is distraught with excessive taxation, complex taxation and Inspector Raj and that's why this proposal looks attractive, but there are many questions in implementation of this."

He explained that in a country with a federal structure it would be a challenge for the Centre to convince states that implementation of a single tax would lead to rise in tax collection and that it would not hurt their rights.

Mr.  Jaitley's views on the matter showed differences in the opinions of leaders with the BJP party.  Another BJP senior leader Nitin Gadkari had earlier favoured replacing of income tax, sales tax and excise tax with a single transaction tax.

Mr.  Gadkari had also said that BJP might include the implementation of a single tax in its vision document to be published by the party ahead of upcoming general elections.  According to Mr.  Gadkari's estimates, the implementation of 1-1.5 per cent of transaction tax would generate revenue of up to Rs 40,000 lakh crore for the exchequer.