Bharat Band Called by CAIT on Feb 26th Over GST Issues

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has decided to call for a Bharat Trade Bandh against the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on February 26.

The decision was taken in a conference of trade leaders on Monday, held in Nagpur.

The All India Transport Welfare Association (AITWA), the premier transport body of the Country has supported Bharat Vyapar Bandh and has declared to hold Chakka Jam of Transporters on 26th February.

CAIT National President B C Bhartia & Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that the current system of GST has converted into a labyrinth of compliances without tangible benefits to the stakeholders. The trade leaders across the country were of a unanimous view that both Central & State Governments have failed to respond to the miseries related to GST of the trading community of the Country.

''The GST council has not only pampered various anomalies and distortions in "One Nation-One Tax" principle of GST but has not taken any step to simplify the GST taxation system. The only aim of the GST Council so far is how to get more revenue and how to load the traders with more compliance burden without considering the ground realties of trade in India,'' they said.

''It is matter of fact that a growing consumer economy like India, the trade can't survive without quick innovations and diversifications in product's profile as per changing demands of markets. The GST seriously lacks product innovations owing to the complicated tax structure. There is no consultative mechanism with the traders pertaining to GST law and rules both at centre and the state government’s level which is much against the declared policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking stakeholders into confidence while framing a policy or the rules and "Minimum Government-Maximum Governance", the leaders added.

Bhartia and Khandelwal the GST tax base is highly underrated which is crushing the prospects of generating more revenue.

''In fact, after four years of GST implementation in India, the current tax base and revenue should have been double what it is presently but making GST complicated each day, the GST Council is killing the spirit of the GST taxation system,'' they asserted.

Both trade leaders said that the system of taxing different variants of a single product under various tax rates is simply bizarre. For example food items have been classified as unbranded with zero tax rate and branded food items have been capped under 5 per cent tax rate is highly unworkable in a Country like India. With multiple rates, GST will limit the scope of product improvisation and likely to force the trade to stay on course with invoice fudging through digital mediums which is surely quite undesirable.

''The simplification can’t be done without toning down the bureaucratic discretion,'' they said.