The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has expressed satisfaction on decisions of GST Council meeting held on September 20, 2019 and complimented finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allowing relaxation to traders having an annual turnover up to Rs 2 crore from the filing of annual GST returns for last two years. “It’s a proactive approach of the government which will bring relief to about Rs50 lakh traders across the country,” said Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary-General of CAIT. Khandelwal, however, said that the form of annual GST return is very complicated and needs to be simplified to the extent that even an ordinary trader in a rural area can comply with the form timely on his own.
He also said that slashing GST rate on Hotels from 28% to 18% is a welcome step and not only prove to be a breather for small and budget hotels but will also help in making India a tourist hub. Khandelwal said that several other procedures of GST also needs to be simplified and rationalized to make it an easy taxation system like the revision of returns, quarter filing of returns instead on a monthly basis. He demanded that the tax rate on auto spare parts, aluminum utensils, and several other items needs to be brought down. “The basic fundamental tax on raw material should not be higher than finished products needs to be adopted,” he said.