Trade organisations in Madurai have urged the local ministers to provide relief in terms of rectifying the drawbacks of the GST system in the ensuing budget session of the Tamil Nadu government.
S Rethinavelu, president of the Agrofood Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in a representation to the minister for commercial taxes P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan has said that the Union government has continued to confuse the trading community since the implementation of the GST in 2017, by implementing changes and issuing contradictory statements.
Many small traders have gone out of business, because they were not able to understand this new tax regime, and due to the penalties, including imprisonment. Thousands of them who were job providers are today job seekers still searching for jobs. What is really prevailing is tax terrorism, as far as this new system is concerned, he said. Hence, he urged the minister to constitute a high level committees at the state and Union levels to make the tax system simplified. Traders who pay more than Rs. 1 lakh crore as tax, have to spend a lot to file their taxes. Earlier, they were able to file the TNGST and VAT without the help of an auditor.
A long pending demand that has not been addressed by the GST council till date is the taxing for essential commodities like rice, wheat and dhal if they are sold under a brand name. This is forcing many companies which established a brand name after a lot of efforts to give up the same. This would also mean giving up the move to promote quality products. Hence, the tax should be the same essential commodities whether they are branded or not.
In another representation to the minister, the Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Merchants Association urged that the government should implement the Samadhan scheme as already announced in the assembly for pending taxes, without penalty or interest. This would benefit the traders immensely.
Kerala, Karnataka and some others states have got relief by implementing the Samadhan scheme after the GST came into effect from July 1, 2017, president of the association, S P Jeyapragasam said.
Source from: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/madurai/trade-bodies-seek-relief-in-gst-system/articleshow/83675793.cms