Trade representatives should be given representation in GST Council: CAIT urges Fin Min

New Delhi, July 1 (KNN) Congratulating Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on successful completion of two years of implementation of GST in the country, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has urged that trade representatives should be given representation in the GST Council.

National General Secretary of CAIT, Praveen Khandelwal urged that trade representatives should be given representation in the GST Council which will surely help the Government in increasing revenue and simplifying the GST.

The association also said that GST Lokpal should be formed and the GST Advisory Committee should be constituted at all the district levels across the country in which beside officers’ trade representatives should also be included.

It said that under GST, increasing the scope of tax, making GST more simplified, review of the items described in the various tax slabs, the slab of 28%, should be restricted to only luxury goods are needed to be looked into.

There is also a need for widening the tax base which may yield revenue to the Government, CAIT added.

National President B.C. Bhartia and Khandlewal applauded the contribution of former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for successfully implementing the GST in India and said that the GST tax system in India could possible only by the strong will of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley.

The trading community has lend its full cooperation for smooth implementation of GST in India  which has resulted into the fact that so far 1 crore 35 lakhs traders have registered, out of which 17.74 lakh traders have taken advantage of the composition scheme and tax collection of GST is more than Rs 1 lakh crore per month, said CAIT.

“There are about 70 million traders in the country and if GST is simplified then the tax scope of GST will increase in large quantities and the government will get abundant revenue”, it added.

CAIT urged Sitharaman that the simplification of return form in GST is very important, on the other hand filing of return should be made every quarter instead of every month.

It also said that 28% tax slabs should be used only for luxury goods and items like auto parts, cement, marble, paint etc. should be added to other lower tax slabs .Similarly Aluminium Utensils, hand-made laundry soap, ice cream etc. should be kept in the lower slab.

The traders’ body also said that it is very necessary to give the refund of merchants promptly by the department, so that capital of traders may not be stuck with the Department.

In addition, it stated that simplification of the annual filing form is very important as the details sought for in this form have never been asked before and hence there is no provision in any accounting software and filing of this form by the merchants is very difficult.

There is no provision to revise the returns in GST and therefore this provision should be included.

CAIT also pointed “Since it was a new taxation system, the interest, late fees, penalties etc. charged by the Department should be refunded back to traders. Those traders who have not been able to get the input credit for any reason till now, can be given an opportunity to get the input credit. The traders whose turnover is less than 10 crores should be freed for 2 years for filing audited return and annual returns.”