The Congress president Rahul Gandhi is facing objection by a representative Body of traders especially the small businessmen comprising the retailers, due to his alleged statement where he denoted GST as ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) through a letter to Rahul Gandhi expressed their objection and said that such statement coming out of him is highly irresponsible and disgraceful.
CAIT expressed their support to the GST and said that the retailer community is quite happy with taxation done under the GST Norms as it has freed the section from the inspector raj during the reign of the earlier systems. The letter charged the Congress and said that it seems as if the Party is trying to fetch political gains on behalf of traders and it is just like shooting the opposition keeping the gun over the trader’s shoulder. But CAIT wishes to confirm that they admire the GST taxation system and wholeheartedly has accepted it.
The details of the letter are such that it says, that it is noticeable that it is the GST Council which has got the tax system implemented in the country which is represented by state governments ruled by Congress. It was the traders’ society which faced many ups and downs during the initial stage of GST implementation, as it was a shift to a very new system.
CAIT in its letter has further clarified that it has been a great relief from the massive paperwork which was badly involved in the earlier taxation system, whereas, after the initial issues faced by the traders the GST tax implementation became very easy and understood as the Government took various steps to get things simplified and as of now the traders society is quite happy with such taxation rule. The traders now feel relief from the continuous ‘inspector raj’ and the enormous paperwork which was quite tedious to do and was to be taken care of along with the business.
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Earlier, the Government took several steps to make the traders happy including the lowering of the tax of a number of items and as considered and has taken the required action following the several representations made by the traders’ associations. The major step taken in the context of the lowering of the tax was in the favour of the small traders who have been kept out of the GST Ambit by increasing the threshold limit to 40 Lakhs. This has also been mentioned in the letter issued by the CAIT.
The Association clarified that the trading community is satisfied by the GST rule and they are quite positive regarding the resolution of the remaining issues Asap.
Chartered accountant and GST practitioner Pritam Mahure expressed his views and said reacting to the development that GST Is related to the Economy and is an economic policy which is jointly brought into the system by the state and Centre and should not be made an issue to reap political gains.
“If the opposition parties had a better solution than GST, they should have come up with the proposal,” he said.
Kailash Jogani, former president of Nagpur Chamber of Commerce Limited (NCCL), said that “GST cannot be abolished at this stage. The only possibility remains is to bring suitable amendments in it.”
BC Bhartia, national president of CAIT, said traders should rather remain non-committal over such policy issues. The very concept of GST was mooted by Congress and with 100% credit on input taxes, the prices of commodities have certainly come down, he said.