One Year Of GST!

The GST bandwagon has had a choppy ride in the first year but is gaining momentum. Further fine-tuning of the GST law holds key to future success.

- Dipak Mondal

Bahadurke Road, a bustling street in Ludhiana houses over 250 hosiery units and a handful of oil mills. Top Gear Fashions, a manufacturer and exporter of garments is among the bigger units housed there. Anup Jain, partner, Top Gear is happy that GST has been implemented because many unscrupulous promoters and businesses were avoiding paying taxes. GST has the mechanism to plug loopholes, he says.

But he rues the fact that government has gone easy after sending strong signals that they wanted to get tax avoiders. “In the first couple of months, everyone sent consignments with proper bills. Then they realised that the government has relaxed its vigil and are going easy. Immediately, people who are used to fraudulent ways were back with a vengeance,” he says. Under-invoicing says Jain is rampant and the ‘cash’ business is back in major wholesale markets. The kaccha bill is 11.2cr e-way bills generated in the first three months very much in business.

In New Delhi, Rajat Mohan, partner at chartered accounting firm, AMRG & Associates is piqued that though GST was supposed to be governed online, many processes were still happening manually. “Refunds are getting stuck because GST Network or GSTN, the custodian of the IT backbone of GST has not developed a particular utility,” he says.

Meanwhile in the corridors of North Block, home to the finance ministry, while the government is boasting about growing monthly collections, officials are wary about tax buoyancy due to GST.