Dr Subramanian Swamy had warned Government on several occasions that GST must not be implemented without adequate preparedness
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is an internationally acclaimed indirect tax system, meant to replace many existing taxes into one. Though GST was first proposed by former Prime Minister Sri Atal Bihari Vajpai in 1999 yet it took very long time to see the light of day. Mr Arun Jaitley would be remembered for implementing GST successfully in India. He cleverly won the confidence of all states like a crisp statesman and proved his abilities by procuring approval of all states with its present structure.
The post-GST situation has presently been nothing less than a surgical strike on Indian economy and taxpayers.
GST council headed by Mr Jaitley adopted a dual GST model where taxation is administered by both the Central and State Governments. Transactions made within a single state are levied with Central GST (CGST) by the Central Government and State GST (SGST) by the State governments. Unfortunately, as predicted by many famous economists, the post-GST situation has presently been nothing less than a surgical strike on Indian economy and taxpayers.
GDP has been declining since its implementation showing how badly GST had its impact on business. IT backbone of GST, GST Network hit the taxpayers as well as professional CAs very hard. There are thousands of complaints of technical glitches in GSTN portal. Finance Ministry eventually roped in National Informatics Centre (NIC) to meet the technical challenges but it was very late. It’s alleged that Infosys’s poorly developed portal has completely ruined the expected benefits of “One Nation, One Tax” theme of GST. GSTN has recently appointed 39 GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs) in addition to already appointed GSPs but disastrous that APIs are still not shared with any of these GSPs. APIs are the basic requirement for GSPs to start functioning.
Senior BJP leader Dr Subramanian Swamy had warned Government on several occasions that GST must not be implemented before 2019 without adequate preparedness. But govt chose to go ahead and the half-baked GST was launched hurriedly. Finance Ministry has failed to remove procedural discrepancies arising in GST related complaints from taxpayers around the country.
Unfortunately, the historic opportunity of transforming the tax system has proved to be a massive disappointment.
Note:
1. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
- Nation suffers as govt chose to ignore Dr Swamy’s warning regarding GST - September 29, 2017
- Dr Swamy & billions of Hindus hopeful to see the Ram Mandir - July 24, 2017
- P Chidambaram: James Bond of UPA’s Anti-RSS mission - July 18, 2017
Any change is never digestible whether it is good or bad. No one prepared for 100% and in particular such a massive network. If not implemented then it will never.
It’s an article or just social media post?
Happy to see Neelakshi also joined Ravi against GSTN. Proud. God bless.
Thank you Guru Ma