Pune: Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal has urged businessmen and traders from the city to conduct business honestly to benefit from the newly rolled-out Goods and Services Tax (GST). He said that there is a need for positivity about the new tax regime which will pay in the long run.
Goyal was speaking on the post-GST analysis lecture organised by Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO), Pune Chapter in association with various trade associations of Pune. Eminent personalities from the business community in Pune were present for the lecture to seek clarifications on the new tax regime.
According to Goyal, there will be problems in the transitional period and any problems that arise will be solved by having an open discussion with the concerned stakeholders. Speaking on concerns raised by traders about harassment from officials, Goyal assured that traders will not be harassed in case of any mistakes or discrepancies in the first filing.
he also said that while the traders and business community is worried about filing 37 returns, the idea has been misinterpreted by most. “It is, in fact, true to say that there is not a single return to file. If it was called a statement, there would have been no resistance. What traders have to do is honestly enter the sales invoices on the system. The purchase invoices need not be put in as the suppliers will be filing their invoices based on which your purchase invoices will be auto-populated. While filing, you only have to check the purchase and sales invoices against that of the suppliers based on which the system will show the tax credit that has been obtained and the amount of tax or refund due,” he said.
Addressing another concern of the traders, Goyal added, “People are asking why they should be burdened if their supplier hasn’t paid the tax. But, you must take the effort. A trader who takes tax from you but does not pay it, will not be able to go scot-free. With all documents and personal details being linked, it will be easy to trace any person who is evading taxes. Such a trader will be blacklisted.
Speaking on tax on branded and packaged variants of essential commodities, he said that such industries need to look at the input credit available to them. “In case of branded rice, the processing company will get input credit against the processing, purchase of plastic for packaging, warehousing and others. The five per cent tax can get set off against that. The companies or traders need to look at the credit available and pass on benefits to the consumers,” he said.
He urged the traders and businessmen to trade and have competition on quality of goods and services instead of the ability to evade taxes or cheat.
