CAIT upbeat over businesses running as usual post GST implementation

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), national traders’ body shares about the scenario prevailing in the country for the last three days post successful nationwide rollout of GST. With GST on board, the business activities in the Country remained smooth and normal like any other day and there was no panic seen.

Traders across the country successfully generated GST Invoices as prescribed under the GST Act & Rules. Moreover, footfall of consumers in commercial markets and shopping complexes remain as usual throughout the day. Interestingly, consumers were seen keenly enquiring about the method of GST being levied in the Invoice.  On the other hand, traders across the country did their best to follow the GST law while raising the Invoice, despite having lack of knowledge about tax rates, HSN code, etc. Most of them managed themselves by consulting either their fellow traders, or trade leaders of respective trade associations apart from their tax consultants.

However, the traders not having access to computers are raising manual Invoice which is allowed under law though at time of filing return they will have to generate computer invoice for uploading the same at GST Network portal. CAIT has urged both central and state governments to draw a plan to reach out to Trade Associations for sensitising traders about GST fundamentals & compliance obligations under GST. Since GST is the new tax both for the government as well as the traders, coming few months will be a learning experience as such no trader is penalised for procedural lapses  till 31 March 2018 and this period should be declared as interim period .

Reiterating commitment towards seamless GST implementation, Mr. Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General, CAIT said, “CAIT stands committed with the Govt in its efforts towards seamless GST implementation. By and large traders are more willing to go with GST since it is advantageous because of input credit on both goods and services.”

CAIT also pointed out that for interstate sales IGST needs to be charged, as IGST is combo of both CGST and SGST. And, identification of HSN Code of each product is also an issue, due to which traders dealing in multiple products face some problem as different products have different tax rates under GST. There is still frenzy among many shopkeepers to sell old stocks at pre-GST rates, even as they await manufacturers to issue new MRP on packaged products. The old MRP includes VAT, and they cannot sell that stock by adding the new GST rates, which would increase prices substantially. Additional efforts are also needed to include J&K under the ambit of GST immediately.