new delhi finance minister arun jaitley on monday said the states are not in favour of including petrol and diesel in gst at the moment ruling out any immediate levy of the new indirect tax on these petroleum productswhile gst was rolled out on july 1 real estate as well as crude oil jet fuel or atf natural gas diesel and petrol were kept out of its purview this meant that the products continued to attract duties like central excise and vatso far the mood of states most of the states is not in favour of including it in gst at the moment but i am sure as the gst experience moves on i think natural gas real estate these are areas which are to be brought in and then probably at some stage we will keep trying for petrol diesel and potable alcohol jaitley saidthe five petroleum items have been kept out of gst as they are considered cash cows giving both the centre and states bulk of their tax revenuesbut keeping them out has created compliance issues including taking input tax creditfor example a refinery producing diesel and petrol would pay gst on the procurement of plant machinery and services but that tax would not be creditable against excise duty and vat levied on petrol and dieseljaitley said further rationalisation of the tax rates would continue as revenues go up and ultimately the 28 per cent tax slab would be restricted to demerit and luxury goodsgst broadly has settled down almost in every meeting now we are able to rationalise the tariffs and this process will continue it will continue with the structure tariffs being rationalised and the structure itself being rationalised as the collections go up he saidthe minister said that gst currently is a voluntarily declared gst with one check and safeguard that is the input tax creditthe taxpayers base in indirect tax has widened i think slowly as the software system matures and the 23 antievasion measures that are possible are put in place the compliance level in gst will automatically improve he saidjaitley said from voluntary declaration under the gst which are currently taking place because of antievasion measure in place the collection will improvean improved collection will help sticking to fiscal deficit target in coming years he saidthe government has set a fiscal deficit target of 33 per cent of gdp in 201819 down from 35 per cent this fiscal