#MoodMeter: One Year Of GST- Mixed Reactions From City

July 3, 2018

GST — Image used for representation only

The Government is believed to have introduced the Goods and services tax to simplify and ease the tax burden for citizens, yet it has seen its share of flaws, criticism and difficulties in implementation over the past year.

Pune365 spoke to a cross section of experts, professionals and informed citizens on their perception of the post GST scenario in the city:

Shashank Gosavi, GST suvidha provider says, “GST is considered the biggest financial reform and is a great concept.

Reducing tax heads, tax burden, filing process and digitalisation are some of its benefits. But, much like the other policies of the govt, this also lacks clear vision and implementation.”

Even Being a GST Suvidha (service) provider for more than 8 months now, I still get stuck on some of the clauses, thanks to the constant changes by the council.

It needs more time to achieve it’s objectives, though it has increased the tax net and I believe the important articles like petrol, alcohol should also be brought under GST as soon as possible.

Pranav Rajwade, Chartered accountant says, “Goods and service tax came into existence on the basis of a concept of one nation-one tax. We all know GST is divided into few segments. One of the major advantages of GST, is you can’t skip tax in GST, Because right from the manufacturer, dealer, or customer all are included in a system, so it’s very difficult to break the chain.”

“As a result of this 34 lakhs indirect taxpayers or small businessmen came into the mainstream and are liable to pay tax now. This survey was done post-GST on 29 Jan 2018, If we talk about Maharashtra it’s revenue raised by 28percent post GST.

Several small-scale businesses that came into the mainstream didn’t pay tax for years, so prices increased. And there so much competition and plus this is an e-business, so it became problematic.

Another problem of gst is that we don’t talk is its an online payment system. Like millions of entrepreneurs, they are filing gst and existing infrastructure can’t support this amount of load. So most of the time servers are down.

Other advantage of gst is that it has bought ease in the tax structure.

Pramod Jain, Chartered accountant and Insolvency professional says, “ Through the implementation of GST, a financial discipline has been brought to the whole concept of business, this fact is admitted even by those, who never were part of the organised sector.

GST has impacted the country positively, the government revenues as well as the GDP has increased positively as a result of GST. GST, not only has a positive impact on indirect tax revenues but also on direct tax revenues.”

However, few changes needs to be brought in. Firstly, the applicability of RCM will need to be simplified. And notional GST in case of Head Offices and branches in inter state operations will need to be abolished, as it is causing uncalled for hardship without any benefit to anyone.

GST is the best thing to have happened in this country and in my opinion, is a panacea for many socio-politico and economic ills which our country has suffered since independence, adds Jain.

Honey Sharma, Real Estate Consultant says, “GST has a major impact on real estate industry.

Nowadays the market is good for buyers if they’re opting for resale, while if you’re planning to buy a new flat than it is huge loss earlier the TAX was 12% now it has increased by 6 % which is 12% GST and 6% of stamp duty which is like 4-5 lakhs, customer has to pay.

On the other side even a builder has to suffer a lot, the raw materials purchased before GST and purchased after GST there is huge cost gap between them. Although GST has certainly boost up the economy. It is further expected to lessen the construction cost in the favour of developers, he added.