FNB News - CAIT opposes dual GST, launches national campaign for single-tax regime

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CAIT opposes dual GST, launches national campaign for single-tax regime

Friday, 03 July, 2015, 08 : 00 AM [IST]

Ashwani Maindola, New Delhi

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has strongly opposed the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation in India. The GST regime which has dual tax system & proposed three monitoring authorities is pending with Parliament and is expected to be taken up in the Monsoon session for passing. CAIT termed the proposed GST regime, a hindrance in ease of doing business, and dubbed it as a complex system.
In this regard, as a part of its national campaign, the organisation held a Traders Conference in New Delhi recently, which was attended by representatives of trade, transport, SMEs, consumers, hawkers and other segments of trade. It was chaired by CAIT national president B C Bhartia. The CAIT intends to hold such conferences in 40 cities of different states within next two months. Already similar conferences have been held at Mumbai and Navi Mumbai few days back.

"The proposed GST runs counter to ease in doing business vision of prime minister and therefore the CAIT has launched a nationwide campaign to oppose GST proposals. We demand single-tax GST with single authority coupled with uniform act & tax rates across the country and develop India on a concept of "one Mandi." The stakeholders cannot be taken for granted and the proposed form of GST is not acceptable to us,"stated Praveen Khandelwal, secretary-general, CAIT.

He added that it has been proposed that there will be two types of GST i.e. Central GST & state GST and both CGST and SGST will have to be charged in each transaction and separate sales return needs to be filed with two separate departments by the traders. The inter-state sales will be governed by IGST, a third authority to be constituted by GST Council. In present VAT taxation system, there is only one authority which regulates the entire taxation structure.

“Levy of 1% additional tax on inter-state sales for which no input credit will be allowed to traders is another issue that will create problems and this runs counter to principle of full transfer of tax. Though traders are expected to perform as revenue getters with utmost efficiency but so far government has not initiated any step to hold consultations with stakeholders," stated Bhartia.

Though e-compliance under GST is a welcome step but so far government has not taken any initiative to promote adoption of computerisation among trading community. As per an estimate, so far only 25-30% of six core business enterprises in retail trade have adopted computers. How rest of the enterprises will comply with GST is another concern of the traders, according to Bhartia.

CAIT, meanwhile, urged the Union government to begin talks with stakeholders and said that on the pattern of National Academy of Direct Taxes, a National Academy of Indirect Taxes should be formed where tax officials should be trained. A separate civil services for taxation "Indian Taxation Service"on the lines of IAS or IPS may be formed to monitor taxation structure in India, it said.