By Faiz Askari

While Modi Government is bullish towards making GST inroads and committed towards the deadline of July 1^st, Industry stakeholders are continuously sharing their demands, opinions and expectations from this landmark development of Indian financial structure. At this juncture, SMEStreet decided to talk to entrepreneurs themselves and find out their outlook towards the new upcoming GST regime. In our earlier story, we highlighted the demands of the industry stakeholders.

Also Read: Industries Come Forward with Concerns Regarding Proposed GST Structure SMEStreet Coverage on GST

In this article we have listed down the industry feedback of current developments regarding GST Roll Out. Here are some industry quotes:

Mr. Sudip De, Director at Doel International commented, “ GST shall provide the much needed stimulant for economic growth in India by ensuring the free flow of goods and services within the economy and also eliminating the cascading effect of different taxation. It might also increase the administrative costs. One Nation, one Tax will enable abolishment of entry tax, LBT, Octroi etc. It will enable businesses to move into different geographies seamlessly. Also, with the introduction of electronic payment structure, it will ease the process of conducting business for IT companies.”

On perspective of manufacturing, Mr De said, “GST would provide tax credit to the manufacturer. Various tax barriers such as check posts and toll plazas lead to a lot of wastage for perishable items being transported, a loss that translated into major costs through higher need of buffer stocks and warehousing costs as well. A single taxation system could eliminate this roadblock for them.   A single taxation on producers would also translate into a lower final selling price for the consumer. Also, there will be more transparency in the system as the customers would know exactly how much taxes they are being charged and on what base.”

On the other hand, Mr. Sanjay Joshi, Country Manager at Edimax believes that GST will change the speed of economic growth, he said, “In general GST is a biggest game changer and reforms India’s indirect tax structure. The amalgamation and comprehensive tax structure introduced will surely help in boosting GDP. One India, One Market will surely allow ease of doing business within the economy, boost transparent tax structure and will reduce corruption. The Introduction of GSTN enabled software’s and new methods of electronic payments will surely help in carrying out the business process with accuracy, speediness and seamlessness.”

Highlighting, service sector’s perspective, Mr Joshi added, “Services sector in India is a rapidly growing and significantly contributing sector to fiscal revenues. As indicated so far, the standard GST rate would be 18-20%, as compared to the current 15% service tax including cesses then the services and hence IT, telecom, BFSI sector may witness negative impact.”

“It’s great that now all taxes would come under a single scheme. GST is intended to move all indirect taxes but it may create a problem in trade and commerce for the manufacturers who are manufacturing in different parts of the nation. But indeed it will surely bring transparency in the business and for the customers which will, in turn, eliminate corruption.” Says Mr Joshi of Edimax.

Mrs. Sarita Pansari, Director at Savera Digital India shares a different opinion on GST, she mentioned, “In order to accelerate digitization, it is a pronounced tax reform which will now follow destination based tax structure instead of origin based. GST will surely reduce the average tax rate. By registering for all the states we are catering to, we expect ease in the business processes. Our business will surely be benefited as it will help in eliminating the spurt effects of the present tax structure and will allow free flow of goods and services within our country.” 

She also predicted, “There is no immediate impact of the GST bill as everything depends on the final GST bill that will be implemented. The most important impact will be that the IT distributors need to change their distribution model to take most out of new structure. Channel managers and sales executives will be hearing less conflict issues due to price differences caused by local taxes. No matter what happens in final bill customers will be getting higher stake as they get maximum benefit and we happy with that.”

On the contrary, industry stakeholders also expressed their demands and apprehensions from the present form of GST roadmap. In our earlier story

Industries Come Forward with Concerns Regarding Proposed GST Structure

We explained the key demands from the industry in a different story few days back.