The Goods and service tax is under a very heavy pressure to improve and get ready for its upcoming rollout. Struggling with issues like poor internet connectivity service for the integration of the tax data framework to the low performing software from the government which it seems unable to handle a staggering amount of 3.5 billion invoices per month, all has to be resolved under a meager amount of time.
Right now, the Small and Medium Enterprises i.e. SMEs are going under a tough time to tackle the hardships from the GST as there are various checkboxes which are needed to be tick marked before entering into this new taxation arena. The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the retail sector has demanded a little shift from the implementation date of GST by two months stacking it to September 1. The sector has asked for this next to impossible thing in the wake of complex and tedious compliance preparations for the goods and services tax.
Earlier the SME sector raised a voice over the exemption issue, as the sector which is enjoying an exemption of around 1.5 crores which will be narrowed down to a value of INR 20 lakh only. While along with intrusive input tax credit into the sector will harm the growth and its fruitful impact on the economy, as said by the industry experts.
The first to respond to this issue were some of the retailers operating in the wide area, were Max Standard Retail Pvt, SRS Group and Vmart which has written a letter to the GST council head and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley concerning all the issues of compliance and preparations towards the GST framework.
The community of retailers was asking for the extension of the implementation of the GST tax reform a slight forward in order to cope up with the changes it has to undergo before the upcoming goods and service tax reform which will create a unified market out of diversified sectors currently operative in India.
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The statement which was submitted to the union finance minister who is leading the GST council mentioned that, “The extension window is important for the players of the sector as order placement for the next quarter has already commenced and retailers are not in a position to accurately forecast the impact on MRP.”
As it was earlier seen by the traders association Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), it also made a similar request regarding the extension of the goods and services tax (GST) roll out as it made the plea on the basis of non-preparation of the small business units.
If the statistics are to be studied, CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal says on the basis of it, there are around 70 percent of the small business units which are still far away from the implementation of the digital technology into their business operation and transactions. Their business format is also under the manual influence currently and it will be a complex challenge for such a sector to completely transform themselves into the digitized mode in such a short period of time.
CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal also mentioned that “Accordingly, the deadline for GST implementation from July 1 may be deferred for a reasonable time and meanwhile, a nationwide campaign for mass awareness on GST may be conducted involving trade associations all over the country.”
