GST is OK But Toll Post Lakhanpur, a mockery

Rakesh Jalali
GST rollout in entire country on 1st of July 2017 and its implementation wef 8th of July in J&K was alleged to have brought a uniform taxation system in entire country, may it be for small or big business enterprise, no doubt, it brought more transparency viz-a-viz honest working for all the business houses of the country and gave a boost to the healthy revenue generation of centre as well as state Govts…finally may now give a further, gradual but certain rise to the Gross Value Added (GVA) in manufacturing growth of the country in near future with its growth graph may further rise as compared to the previous year’s GVA.
It is a very good taxation regime for the honest and fair business working, with its broad spectrum transparency….may act as a boomerang for those, who always believed to earn through illegal means by evading tax. GST umbrella is all set to cover entire business establishments, may be small or big, through the length and breadth of the entire country thus creeping deep down by covering all the traders, manufacturers, hoteliers, shop keepers, PSU’s etc etc. Now, under this new regime, it shall be advisable for all concerned to discipline their working for their better future prospects in terms of smooth tax bridge with the State/Centre agencies.
It may also act as a magic wand for careless and disobedient handlers bcoz of its basic mechanism of tax deduction at source (TDS).
Going by the opinions of different trade unions and individuals, GST as per them is a blessing in disguise, but the process of its implementation was initially, somewhat, frequent and instant.
As already described in the opening lines of this write-up, the GST regime has been welcomed by majority of all, may it be traders, manufacturers, PSU’s, shopkeepers, individuals, group of people, trading unions, and even public in general, but certain discrepancies were required to be removed.
Initially, there were certain practical problems, which have, now been rectified by the GST council of India from time to time, since its inception.
Implementation of the GST regime in shortest time period after its rollout on 1st of July, 2017 in entire nation, but in J&K on 8th of July, has now been made more attractive by further modifying it by shifting phase wise, most of the items of commercial use, domestic need as well as household items from the highest 28% slab to 18%, 12%, 5% & even to 0% tax slab.
More importantly. Filing of GST returns, followed by the filing of income tax returns in the same month at the fiscal end of the year becomes an uphill task, not for the business community only, but equally for the taxation consultants/Chartered accountants, who have, in principle come across such a new regime.
If you go by the past data of clientele list of even an ordinary tax consultants, you will find at least 200 to 300 clients being handled by each of them (Tax consultants) in routine past, but it seems to be an impossible task for them to render their clients, the service, pertaining to the new GST regime, where a tedious amount of online computer work is required to be done within a limited time period of 05 days only…between each three slots, by 10th, 15th and 20th of every month, they opine,
Be it known to the readers that some tax consultants/ tax advisors initially added more clients to their existing list but of late have started reducing their burden by saying good-bye to some of their new clients…thus getting absolved of their additional burden, with a fear that they (Tax consultants) may not be able to render them (Businessmen) the timely service.
It has moreover, become more difficult for businessmen to engage even the part time, under trainee accountants, who (Accountants) are also finding it quite difficult to provide services to their wishful clients (Businessmen) due to the sudden and drastic over burden created after the rollout of this new regime. Every month’s 10, 15, and 20 are the dates to file the returns in totality.
As per the policy under this new regime, a businessman has to pay the advance tax at the time of purchase of material in a different tax slabs e,g 5%, 12%, 18% & 28%….irrespective of its disposal time period further, thus putting additional burden in terms of rate of interest for the shelf period , they (Business community) shall have to pay for the unsold stock.
More significantly, an important point to understand is that…there are understood to be many small time business entrepreneurs in the country, who haven’t filed their nill returns for the firms on which no purchase or sale was made by them during the period, since GST was implemented as the mistake was inadvertently committed because of unawareness of the new taxation system and also due to their inaccessibility to engage the tax consultants mainly because of their (Tax consultants) dearth. The GST council, keeping into the genuineness of the matter, should announce an amnesty scheme, vide which the traders or newly enlisted firms can avail the relief by filing their nill returns without paying any late fee or penalty. In such cases, the huge sum in shape of late fee by many newly enlisted firms have so far been paid.
As a matter of fact, bringing this new taxation system into practice, there was a great need to initially create a sufficient infrastructure in terms of availability of tax consultants/CA’s, but without having understood the alarming proportion of acute shortage of tax consultants/advisors in entire system, which definitely created the abrupt confusion and chaos. Initially, there should have been the quarterly returns filing system in its beginning and once it was synchronised and brought into the long practice, then later on, it could have been converted in to the monthly return system once the business community got acclimatised .
But honestly speaking , it (GST) was a big historical decision in the history of great independent India to introduce such a viable & transparent taxation system,.that one needs to muster the courage to replace an ages old system with a new one, with obvious reasons, would invite many teething problems at initial stage of its implementation. A considerable amount of revenue generation by way of GST collection in October, 2018 was 1,00,710 crore and which may further go manifold and may even touch the massive and unimaginable amount of revenue collection in near future..
In fact, it has already started yielding its results in current fiscal year.
More interestingly, it may be the last but not the least to mention here that the existing toll plaza at Lakhanpur, Jammu has put an additional burden of 5 to 6 percent on import of all materials.
Since, its a “one nation one tax” theory, then why to retain this wonder model at Lakhanpur”?? The prevalent toll plaza at Lakhanpur, Jammu has not been removed since the implementation of GST in entire country. Whereas, all toll posts in entire county were removed with immediate effect at the time of implementation of GST regime with a pretext of bringing “One Nation one tax” regime into practice. The existing toll plaza (Toll post) incurs the extra commercial tax burden @ 6% to 7% on all items imported from out side the state and which ultimately increases the cost of product/commodity, while reaching to the end consumer. The present Governor of state has the prerogative of intervening into the matter and may remove the toll post, thus bringing a uniformity by bringing it at par with the existing taxation system of all other states.
There is one old saying, ” A stitch in time saves nine”.
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