Bhopal: Traders raised several issues during presentation on the GST by the commercial tax department here on Wednesday. Though the commissioner asked them to wait until the presentation is over., they (the traders) remained dissatisfied.
During the technical session, a presentation was made by the commissioner appeal, RS Maheshwari. The traders wanted to discuss the issue as they were displayed but the officer did not want to give reply. The officers remained adamant to not to reply and the traders were asked to submit their questions to the expert. The expert satisfied their quarries later.
“Every time we shouldn’t think about winning election, we have to take firm decision for the betterment of the society and we have to be ready whatever the election result may come”, said finance minister Jayant Mallaiya. The CT department has organised the workshop on Goods Service Tax. In the meeting, the department officials, including traders, industrialists and politician participated. The ministers expressed that they were also worried “What is GST”, the minister of state cooperative Vishvas Sarang said, “There were confusion about the GST but as a politician, I was worried what impact will be happen on the voting following the GST”.
Revenue Minister Umashankar Gupta added “First of all we have to change our mindset on GST. Earlier in 2006, the VST was introduced, people were not ready to accept, but later accepted this phenomena will also going to work on GST”. Finance Minister Jayant Mallaiya said that through the GST the ‘inspector raj’ will going to end completely, the 31 tax barriers or the check post had been lifted from the state and seeing the state move, 22 states have also lifted their check posts.
Earlier in the state, due to these check posts, the trucks were running around 260 km in a day but now they can run for 400 km in a day. Commissioner, commercial tax Raghvendra Singh said that the ‘GST is a mirror image of VAT’. On many products the total tax was 30 per cent and it has reduced to 28 per cent.
Earlier the central tax was based on production based, but now it had turned into consumption based. The credit of Rs 50 to 60,000 crore per year was getting to the state. While preparing the GST, 300 items of common price index were kept on target that their price should not increase.
Many fake stories were made against the GST, first that everyone has to take GST number, the traders who will evade tax will be sent to jail and many others. Earlier in the VAT, the traders have got registration number, but in GST the traders who are doing business less than Rs 20 lakh a year, do not need any registration.
The ‘jail issue’, is related to tax evasion of Rs 1 crore a year and in the state only 1150 companies are paying the tax more than Rs 1 crore a year. So small traders or traders who are paying tax below Rs 1 crore a year would not have to fear. In MP, there are 3,20,000 traders and 1,60,000 traders are having transactions less than Rs 20 lakh and around 80,000 are having the annual turnover of Rs 75 lakh. Principal secretary Manoj Shrivastava said that in the world three revolutions had occurred due to tax— the French, Russian and the USA. “The Government of India has sent 150 opinion seeker officers, but I need opinion leaders”, he demanded.
