What can be more peaceful before Gujarat assembly elections, where the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has ensured the Gujarat’s textile community to solve problems faced by taxpayers in Goods and Services Tax (GST) filing procedure.
As textile traders are continuously protesting the new indirect tax regime, local BJP representatives have arranged a responsive meeting of the FM and stakeholders of this industry on Sunday, 26 November. Arun Jaitley proposed to designate senior tax authorities of Delhi to sort out processing and technological glitches pertaining to Goods and Services Tax.
Jaitley invested more than an hour with the stakeholders of the MMF sector and gently talked about GST related problems thoroughly while the first visit to the Diamond City surat of Gujarat. Although Arun Jaitley separated out from rendering any promise and pledge, he mentioned the government is underway to sort out processing and technological glitches under new indirect tax regime.
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All the important representatives and leaders participated in the established meeting of textile traders, textile processors, and powerloom weavers. Previously, the textile sector has undergone broadly spread criticism since the new indirect tax implemented on 1st July 2017.
In the ongoing month-long ferment, which has undergone a 20-day long protest by 65,000 textile businessmen in the Gujarat, the traders had deplored Arun Jaitley for putting 5% tax rate on MMF material. The traders raised the slogans while executing their anger ‘GST ko hatana hai, Arun Jaitley hai hai, vyapari ekta jindabad’.
The FM came back to New Delhi after engaging in the meeting with textile representative and traders. While addressing the textile stakeholders, the FM said, “I invite a group of textile industry leaders with collective representation from the industry to New Delhi. Senior tax authorities will be deputed to sort out the procedural issues.”
Discussing on the e-way bill topic, Arun Jaitley said, “The government is working on launching the national E-way bill between January 1, 2018, to March 31, 2018. The national e-way bill will allow the traders to send their goods to any part of the country, without any procedural problems.”
Arun Jaitley differentiated GST with European countries and said India has become rigid quickly comparing other countries in their GST implementation period. He said, “There are short-term challenges, which the government is committed to resolving. We are not changing decisions in GST, but are rationalizing the entire process.”
In addition, he said, “The textile sector in Surat and other sectors in different states are the growth engine of the country. Our vision is to minimize the interface of assesses with the taxation department like we have done in Income Tax. You can’t expect India to go as a one-rate nation like Singapore because we can’t have one rate on soap and Mercedes.”