As GST Council finalized tax rates, SMEs & traders worry about GST rates

New Delhi, May 24 (KNN) The GST council in its last meeting held in Srinagar recently finalised the tax rates for the goods and services. This however has raised concerns among the traders and small businesses as they fear that the placement in tax slabs might bring them losses.

Talking to KNN, Praveen Khandelwal, General Secretary of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said that the main issue with the GST is that there exists disparities in the sorting of items under the different GST tax slabs.

Explaining further Khandelwal said that there are some items that are imposed a lower tax rate on at present, whereas in the GST they are placed under a higher tax slab. This will hurt the consumers as well as the market.

Commenting upon the classifications made, Khandelwal said that the GST council did not consult his body before finalising the tax rates, this in the long run is bad both for the traders and the consumers as a higher tax rate would mean higher prices of the commodity.

“The tax rates under the present finalised draft in not in the favour of the consumer, this needs to be looked upon seriously” he said.

He also informed that his Association is in the process of studying the 213 page long GST document, once a thorough study is done, they will then approach the Finance Ministry with a set of recommendations that need to be considered.

Earlier last week CAIT also batted for a GST trial period for the initial nine months of the roll out demanding exemption for traders from punishments in case of errors in compliance with the GST.

Also E Commerce companies have raised similar concerns regarding the GST tax slabs. With no proper classification for the e-commerce companies under the GST, there is confusion among the online portals.

Under the proposed GST draft, the online portals are asked to collect one per cent TCS. Responding to which Sanjay Sethi in a press interview said that putting the responsibility on the shoulders of the e-commerce websites to collect the tax is an additional burden on the resources and infrastructure of the portals. (KNN/ DA)