This July we all are celebrating first anniversary of Goods and Service Tax (GST) which came into existence last year. GST has completed its 1 year in India which was brought with a slogan of ‘One Nation One Tax’ that made India as a one market. If we look back 1 year ago, the biggest tax reform in the history created massive chaos across the country and it was the biggest talk among common people, media, and stakeholders. GST rollout was not so easy even for government because India is a very big country where existence of unorganised sectors is huge and government wanted to have control over these sectors to improve the GDP of country. Government also faced huge trouble while creating robust infra which could tackle so huge transformation. On the 1st anniversary of this tax reform, DT has created an informative industry story that would explain you indeed how GST impacted ICT industry.
"I congratulate the people of India on the special occasion of GST completing one year. A vibrant example of cooperative federalism and a 'Team India' spirit, GST has brought a positive change in the Indian economy - Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.”
Flashback
The GST was launched on July 1, 2017, in a ceremony held in the Central Hall of Parliament on the midnight of June 30, 2017 which is said to be biggest economic reform since Independence. Like another sector, it has also affected ICT industry. “The GST has unified the tax system in our country, and a widespread makeover is being witnessed in the Indian economy. GST transition not only had impact on tax but has also overhauled business, finance, accounting and reporting,” said Alok Dubey, CFO, Acer India. “Although it had teething trouble constant evolution and correction has helped to bring in more clarity and logical structure along with easier filing of GST. Businesses have adapted to this well and better use of digital technology will only help in the long run.”
Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, Kingston Technology India said, “Kingston has been in the business for over 20 years in India, where we have seen plenty policy changes. With GST, there were certain challenges of the channel partners to understand the new structure and this resulted with a limited impact on the levels of business.”
“GST undoubtedly has been one of the biggest tax reforms of the Indian economy. On the flip side, we need to also understand that the Indian economy was mostly driven by an unorganised sector. The economy is still coming to terms with the implementation of GST which I feel was the second blow after demonetization and that to in a short span of time. With the introduction of GST, more and more small business are entering in the organised sector as evident from the GST registrations. The tax rate slabs have come down, filing of returns is getting streamlined and businesses are getting accustomed to the changes. While the GST has increased tax compliance and revenue collection by the states, the share of indirect taxes has soared and is likely to soar in future,” stated K G Prabhu, CFO, DIGISOL Systems Ltd.
“GST has not only subsumed over a dozen different indirect central and state taxes, but has also provided ample opportunities for businesses to scale their operations across multiple geographies. The introduction of the e-way bill has changed the way goods are transported in the country across state borders. Further simplification of the filing process is likely to see more businesses adopt GST as a way of working,” commented Joyce Ray, India Business Head, Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
“1st and foremost ease of doing business across India will be easier, though any such large reform will have initial teething problem. It will make large companies to become larger & midsize companies with uniqueness in their way of doing business & solution can make them become big,” said Rajshekhar Bhatt, Country Manager, ECS.
Expressing his opinion on GST anniversary, Manoj Jain, Vice President, Microtek International Pvt. Ltd. said, “We think the transition from multiple taxes to GST has been quite smooth and beneficiary for the industry as well as the consumer and by way of mandatory e-way bills the parallel economy will be forced to come into the main stream economy sooner or later hence for the country it is going to make a revolutionary impact over a period of time.”
“From a broader market perspective, the GST implementation has definitely facilitated a more seamless movement of goods and services within India. GST eliminates the cascading of taxes prevalent earlier, which in turn brings down the prices for commodities and services. It comes with the option of claiming input credit on goods and services availed – something which was earlier not an option – and also helps in improving the supply chain efficiency, both in terms of cost and time, by eliminating the stoppages at state borders,” added Nitin Gupta, GM, Corporate Division, Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. “Moreover, the anti-profiteering clause within GST ensures that the input credit benefits are passed along the supply chain and onto the end-consumer. GST is still far from the simplified tax structure that was promised. The sheer number of accounting entries has grown exponentially since the rollout; organisations with registered operations in 20 or more states in India end up filling 1,000+ returns annually.
“GST is good for the nation but it was not smooth, the Government has put in best efforts to address various issues including political deadlocks, frequent amendments, clarifications and IT related chaos,” said Marthesh Nagendra, Country Manager - India & SAARC, NETGEAR. Unlike during VAT era, the traders are not required to submit physical documents. E-Way bill enabled smooth transfer of good from one place to other. Anti-profiteering law under GST has mandated to producers to pass the benefits of GST to consumers thereby reducing prices for certain products. Tax collections under GST is all time high providing an impetus for growth of the Indian economy.”
Deepak Kabu, CEO, Ziox Mobiles added, “As GST completes one year of its implementation, it was touted as the biggest economic reform since independence. The initiative was to ease the tax system in the country. One of the key benefits under the GST regime is input tax credit. This benefit was not available earlier in service tax regime. With a single non-complex flat tax rate and the elimination of state-based taxes levied on procurement such as custom duty taxes and octroi, there has been a considerable rise in the available credit. The main aim of GST was to replace multiple indirect taxes with one single tax. It has streamlined tax compliance and diminished the room for double taxation.”
“The implementation of the historic Goods and Services Tax (GST) has completed a year with mixed reviews. Overall it is a major tax reform in India, which is expected to boost the economy. Though benefits of the new tax regime were not availed in total, I would say it is a good start and everybody will be comfortable with GST,” said Krishna Choudhary, Director, Rashi Peripherals. “Now coming to the major transformation in the landscape of the Indian economy, in my opinion, people are now adopting the new tax regime after initial hiccups. GST is definitely the major step to generate revenue as it brings all the businesses under the ambit of uniform taxation structure.”
Manoj Pansari, CEO, Astrum Holdings Ltd added, “Traditionally many businesses in India have not been under the umbrage of commercial taxes as they were highly an unorganized sector. With the advent of the GST Regime a majority of these businesses have been effectively brought under GST Umbrella clocking more revenues for the exchequer both at the Central and State level. This is one positive change that the GST regime has brought in.”
“The impact of GST on the Indian economy, thus far has been positive and is expected to continue to do so in the long term. GST has bought several changes in the Business; GST makes the transaction more transparent. Enabling sales invoices to show, the tax applied. GST is applied at the final point of consumption and not at every step (like the manufacturing and retail outlets) which has indirectly helped eliminate misrepresentations and also assisted in the development of the common national market. GST has overall built a beneficial impact on Centre and state governments,” commented Ashish Mutneja, CEO, Quantum Hi Tech.
Sanjay Kalirona, CEO & Director, COMIO Smartphones briefed about their experience after GST implementation, “The introduction of GST is mostly a boon to our economy but the reason why it is termed as a reform is that it will take a lot of time and evolution before it could reflect its claims. Considering the crowd of taxes earlier, GST’s “One nation, one tax” agenda was need of the hour. With the end of the regime of cascading taxes, the complication involved in filing taxes has reduced a thousand tons. With the introduction of a completely digital process, the transparency has increased on the tax payer’s end as well, which further reduces the chances of evading tax. Any business with an annual turnover of 20 lakhs now must digitize their business for transparency in paying tax. As a result of decreased taxes on certain goods and services, their production has increased, prices have lessened and the demand has grown leading to a better economic scenario but it will take a few more years for economy to digest the change and start offering rewards in terms of better GDP.”
“With the introduction of GST 'one nation one tax' regime, the country's business landscape saw a widespread makeover. GST has been termed a potential game changer as it is the single biggest tax reform undertaken by India in 70 years of independence. The rollout has renewed the hope of India’s fiscal reform program regaining momentum and widening the economy. The idea behind implementing GST across the country is that it would offer a win-win situation for everyone,” commented Vinit Agarwal, Director, Brand and Marketing, Aisen.
Bringing together 35 diverse stakeholders to nurture and roll out an indirect tax transformation is the hallmark of Goods and Services Tax (GST) introduction. GST has played a key role in removing the effect of taxes on goods and services, added Arjuun Bajaj, CEO & Founder, Daiwa. “The implementation of GST has proved to be a game-changer for the economy and logistics of the Country. India is now liberated of numerous and intricate indirect taxes and as GST stabilizes going forward. In terms of changes to Indian Landscape; the retail price of the manufactured goods and services in India reveals that the total tax component is around 25-30% of the cost of the product. GST indirectly has bought an increase production; hence, competition increases.”
“GST was introduced to bring 17 different taxes under one single window, along the lines of the ‘One Nation – One Tax – One Market’. Today, GST has completed a year and it has impacted the Indian economy in more ways than one. It had led to the removal of bundled indirect taxes such as VAT, CST, Service Tax, CAD, SAD, and Excise. GST has brought more transparency in the system as the customers know exactly how much taxes they are being charged and on what base, said Kunal Nagarkatti, Chief Operating Officer, Clover Infotech. “The reform seeks to remove this anomaly by giving full credit for taxes paid at the previous stage. GST will smoothen and enhance ease of doing business in the long run and should be a game changer for the Indian economy in the times to come.”
Briefing about the overall change in economy, Riya Kabra, GM Commercials, Truvison said, “Through GST, India has transitioned to a single unified market. Inter-state barriers to trade are dismantled, leading to faster movement of goods across the country, with no long queues at state checkpoints. For domestic manufacturers, this is a big boon as it has lowered the costs, reducing time taken to destination and ultimately greatly add to competitiveness of Indian manufactured goods. GST has also reduced the cost of compliance and litigation as also broadening the tax base. Overall, several positive developments, have built the GST Landscape. The new tax has taken firm root and is altering the economic landscape positively.”
“The midnight launch event of GST on 1st July last year has thrown the entire unorganized sector in India off balance. GST has faced many obstacles in its initial implementation stage. The best thing GST has done is bringing the informal economy i.e. the cash-driven economy under its umbrella, which has made doing business across the country easier and has brought transparency to it. It’s been proven beneficial to the traders and the taxpayers as it has simplified the tax regime to a very basic level and is altering the economic landscape positively,” added Sharan Maini- Director, Business Development, JVC.
“A complete transformation to the Indian landscape describes GST. The new GST regime has multifaceted impact on all sectors across the nation. With promotion of organized trade, GST, has put an end to the different taxes levied by different states which earlier made the process complex and cumbersome. With the new Tax Regime, Businesses saw improved productivity and efficiency unifying the Indian Markets through seamless flow of goods across the states, improving efficiency of logistics. Lastly eliminating the cascading effect of tax GST, roadmaps, the positive direction,” added Zakir Hussain - Director, BD Soft, Country Partner of Bitdefender.
Business in Post GST Era
Earlier, the indirect tax structure was complex and charged varied taxes on one good/service basis factors like manufacturing, selling, movement etc. GST has replaced these and has created a common market,” said Alok Dubey, Acer India. “Movement of goods between states have become more streamlined and opened up more markets for businesses to serve. Inventory can be managed centrally instead of multiple warehouses.”
“It was a challenge at the initial stage at the time of transition. However over a period of time the challenge streamlined. We had to rework on the costing of our products and were glad that we could pass on the benefits of credit received to our end customers. The challenges faced were on two fronts, No-1 was getting clarity on the working of GST, the treatment of GST under various accounting heads, then the different tax slabs and rates with goods as well as services, the treatment with respect to reverse charge mechanism. Every other day there would be notifications and changes made and keeping abreast with the changes was a challenge. No-2 was having our own accounting systems/ software in place with proper reports, formats etc. The good thing was that we had our plans and checklists in place for the transition. Further the availability of credits on then closing inventory made life easier for the trade. The Company passed on the credit it got under transition to its channel/end customers,” added K G Prabhu, DIGISOL.
“For us in the business operations, it has not made any major difference as after initial hiccups the GST structure has been incorporated smoothly into the IT Platform,” said Manoj Jain, Microtek.
“The impact that the GST rollout has had on the operations of Konica Minolta in India is quite significant. The subsuming of Additional Duty/CVD and Special Additional Duty components of Customs Duty into GST is definitely a big plus for import sourcing,” added Nitin Gupta, Konica Minolta. “The GST implementation has also allowed for the consolidation of warehouses by doing away with the various interstate taxes and forms, changing the way that we distribute finished goods and optimising our supply chain. However, GST implementation has impacted our pricing and profitability. We have also had to make widespread changes to our accounting and IT systems in order to be GST compliant, especially when it comes to master data, supply chain transactions, and system design. Migrating existing open transactions and balances before the cut-off date was a huge challenge, but one that we successfully negotiated.”
Marthesh Nagendra, NETGEAR said, “Inventory levels had to be brought under control with GST as compared to VAT since the trader pay hefty amount vowing to the high GST slabs at the customs or manufacturer to clear goods & they expect to recover the same asap. Furthermore, businesses are more accountable to government & they can be scrutinised at multiple levels so organized market will do better under GST. Lastly, after initial toothing problems things went smooth.”
“The announcement of GST last year led to a lot of curiosity and apprehension within the SME community about the new tax. The elimination of the cascading effect of tax and the seamless availability of input tax credit was a welcome proposition, and this served as a major trigger for transition of businesses into the GST era. While there were initial challenges with respect to awareness and technology, these were dealt with via ample extension of deadlines and constant adaptation of the filing process. Today, businesses are much more confident and can see the long term benefits of the proposed tax structure. GST highlighted the need to digitize and adopt technology,” added Joyce Ray, Tally Solutions.
Krishna Choudhary, Rashi Peripherals stated, “I don’t see any major impact of GST on the accounting and inventory affair of our business as well as any other business. Earlier in the VAT system as well we followed a single accounting and inventory management policy. Therefore, GST has not impacted our business operations to a large extent but made it has definitely made us more compliant.”
“GST has indeed been a blessing to accountants and has eased a lot of pressure off the accounting processes thanks to its countrywide uniform slabs of taxation. Prior to the GST Regime it was a nightmare for accounting ensuring compliance to the difference taxation slabs in different states. It has also provided an ease of inventory movement from one state to another without worrying about taxation related issues,” said Manoj Pansari, Astrum. “And to top it all, filings and monitoring of all GST returns is done in the online portal saving phenomenal amount time and energy for the accounting teams.”
“The biggest hurdle was in changing the IT systems which required coordination between tax experts and technology teams. In many cases, some of the ERP software that were provided by the IT majors had to be redesigned and updated with the new GST rules. Overall, Companies had to mainly upgrade their enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting software to accommodate the complexities of calculating GST,” commented Ashish Mutneja, Quantum Hi Tech.
Sanjay Kalirona, COMIO Smartphones added, “Earlier the cumulative tax that was levied on smartphones was approximately 13.5%, which has come down to 12% after the introduction of GST. This has made the smartphone relatively cheaper. Also, because the components used for making smartphones are put in the 12% price bracket, the cost further decreases marginally. Considering that COMIO is a locally assembled brand, if any incentives and relaxations are provided under “Make in India” products, there could be further ease in cost and prices.”
Vinit Agarwal, Aisen said, “With GST, the businesses underwent large-scale changes with respect to business planning, tax and accounting, budgeting, and investments. The challenge at hand for the business community was to adapt to the transitional tax reforms by understanding the various nuances of the new GST regime. Transition to GST also impacted several financial reporting systems, Impact of Tax Credit and Reconciliations are crucial aspects to look into.”
“GST transition has been not only about a tax change but a complete business, finance, accounting and reporting overhaul. The key impact for us was ‘Impact of Tax credit and Reconciliation’. GST bought significant benefits by way of Tax credit,” said Arjuun Bajaj, Daiwa. “On transition to GST, majority of the levies were likely to subsume in GST and were eligible for tax credit, which meant reconfiguring the inventory valuation & asset capitalization or expense recording rules in the accounting system to ensure tax credits are accounted appropriately in the GST regime. It is majorly different from what tax structure used to be earlier. The return filing dates being 3 times in a month and many others things are quite challenging yet good for an organization for better reconciliation.”
“As for our business too, we faced initial issues with our receivables. There were a lot of iterations with respect to invoice formats, GST calculations, commercials that our finance team and our customers were working on. Now, we see a lot of stability as compared to the initial days since GST was implemented. We now have a better grip on our key metrics including receivables and collections. Moreover, we have implemented GST-compliant Oracle Financials on Cloud for ourselves to smoothen the entire process and be compliant with GST mandates,” concluded Kunal Nagarkatti, Infotech.
Riya Kabra, Truvison commented, “Introduction of GST impacted cash flow (increase or decrease). The flow could be more or less depending on the impact on sales and procurements. Some of the factors which influenced cash flows are increase in rate of GST on services, levy of GST on stock transfer to branches, savings on account of seamless credit, lower taxes on purchases, no levy of entry tax, non-requirement of input VAT credit reversal on stock transfers etc. Increased compliance, with increase in the number of returns to be filed annually. We also agreed to pay compensation to our dealers on transition to GST which involved a compensation to be reimbursed to them for additional tax burden arising due to higher GST rate. Finally this is a reduction from revenue in the financial statements of an entity.”
“To fully understand its impact on our accounting and inventory system in the first few months we evaluated the changes that GST has brought on the financial reporting and indirect tax accounting. Consequently, we started figuring out how to realign our accounting system for correct revenue recognition. So I can say overall the affect was huge during the transitional period but now it has found its foothold,” concluded Sharan Maini, JVC.
“Prima Facie, Business operations had to be reworked and modified with the latest technological innovation that further uplifted the enterprise, thus increasing the infrastructure costs and setting up different expertise in the organization. Brands also had to reform the enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting software which simplified the return filing form,” added Zakir Hussain, BD Soft.
Gain For IT Industry
“With the implementation of GST, we have seen the graph of PC adoption going higher in the past few months. We observed growth in last one year by assisting start-ups, businesses, SMEs and trades in helping them adopt this change and growing with economy by utilizing technology at its best for running their business and being GST compliant,” said Alok Dubey, Acer India.
Vishal Parekh, Kingston Technology India added, “2017 was an eventful year where there were many positive elements that rather improved the quality of PC and Gaming markets, like new technologies being introduced, product upgrades and better brand support. We have always dealt with business from the consumer or the end user point of view, which gives us an edge in the market. We will continue improving our product portfolio and focus on constantly delivering high performance products at an affordable price.”
“IT Hardware market the growth was visible in the 2nd quarter of FY 2017-18 compared to low sales in the 1st quarter due liquidating of stocks by distributors/channel partners. The growth in software solutions pertaining to GST has seen more increase compared to hardware demand,” stated K G Prabhu, DIGISOL.
In a brief note, Marthesh Nagendra, NETGEAR said, “Demand for networking equipments & storage have increased post implementation. Traders have invested more in IT hardware.”
“We saw the change in indirect taxation as a big opportunity to educate businesses on adoption of good practices and also help them transition towards the change. Our realization of the opportunity has been in equal measure to everyone else’s in the field of IT hardware and software. However, what makes us feel proud as a key player in this change is the consistent and deep effort that we made beginning Oct 2016 to educate more than half a million businesses on GST and the importance of automating and digitizing,” stated Joyce Ray, Tally Solutions.
Rajshekhar Bhatt, ECS concluded briefly, “We launched GST ready specific communication to market including mentioning the same on our packing which resulted into more awareness about our solutions.”
Krishna Choudhary, Rashi Peripherals commented, “The demand for IT hardware and software has certainly increased post-GST. However, we need to consider two perspectives to it. As far as the implementation of IT is concerned, the enterprise sector already has systems and processes in place, so there was no major change in the existing demand for IT. On the other hand, small traders who were not well-versed with PCs opted for tax consultancy services rather than going for GST compliant PCs. So though the demand for IT hardware and software shot up during the initial month post GST, it was not able to maintain the momentum later. However, we are optimistic that the PC demand will surge as the GST gets more streamlined in the coming years.”
“As mentioned earlier GST has helped in controlling the unorganized businesses which were affecting the IT hardware business. This has directly benefitted our business in terms of expanding our customer base to reach to the unorganized sector,” said Manoj Pansari, Astrum.
Nitin Gupta, Konica Minolta concluded, “The renewed push towards digitisation that GST is currently driving has indeed led to a rapid growth in demand for IT hardware and software solutions from businesses across India. This holds particularly true for SMBs, which were previously either completely or substantially dependent on paper-based processes. The regular tax filing mandated under GST has made this outdated approach extremely cumbersome, thus facilitating greater adoption of digital solutions. At Konica Minolta, we are capitalising on this market shift with our diverse range of innovative, state-of-the-art MFPs.”
Sanjay Kalirona, COMIO Smartphones concluded, “There has been a huge spurt in the demand for the IT services and software after the introduction of GST because the success and failure of GST largely depends on the efficiency of the IT Infrastructure. Thus, despite an increase in the tax on services the overall profits of IT sector have increased resulting in lowered rates. This will further reduce the cost of manufacturing the smartphones.”
Kunal Nagarkatti, Infotech, says, “As Clover Infotech is among the GST-compliant Oracle ERP Cloud implementation partner for Oracle, we are often the first port-of-call for customers who seek solutions to such requirements.”
“Many had to upgrade their software and hardware and also put computation in place whereas before they were doing it manually. This has led to increase in sales of hardware and software,” added Zakir Hussain, BD Soft. “And of course, if hardware grows, software will also grow. At the same time many companies have taken GST into consideration and reduce their rates or kept it same after GST which has also helped in increase of sales.”
Higher Expectations
“GST has seen significant success in its first year of implementation, however I believe there is a long way to go for both the government and taxpayers in attaining a simplified GST regime. There is still room to bring in more products under the ambit of GST and make the filing and accounting simpler and I believe government is working towards the goal of One Nation One Tax,” commented Alok Dubey, Acer India.
Vishal Parekh, Kingston Technology India commented, “We now see more acceptance and willing of the customers to spend on valuable system upgrades for the best computing experience. A good reason for our success pan- India after the implementation of GST has been our effective Go-To-Market strategies.”
“Easy and quick resolution of queries which are a plenty needs to be addressed by the Government. Today whenever there is lack of clarity the trade is not able to approach the appropriate authorities as the officers themselves are unaware of resolving certain issues like the refunds of exports, availment of credits, valuation rules etc. The higher tax slabs at 28% should be done away with. Bringing in petroleum, real-estate and electricity under GST can make it can make it more effective. Moreover fewer tax rates and simplification of compliances would be great,” concluded K G Prabhu, DIGISOL.
Manoj Jain, Microtek added, “The major suggestions are for converging tax slabs into minimum numbers.”
“Biggest concern remains the ambiguity around the several aspects of regulation. GST though has its long term benefits, but is a complex system. GST has brought in ‘one nation one tax’ system, but its effect on various industries is slightly different. It mainly depends on whether the industry deals with manufacturing, distribution and retailing or is a service provider,” commented Deepak Kabu, Ziox Mobiles.
Rajshekhar Bhatt, ECS stated, “Believe pain areas are common for all, assume faster credit of GST, lesser filing & transparency with quick response time will be key as we move forward.”
“As the GST has slowly started gaining positive reviews, we expect the Government to equalize the prices of certain necessary products by bringing them under the ambit of the new tax. A disparity in prices due to different tax rates is really an injustice to common citizens and the Government should address this issue on a priority basis,” concluded Krishna Choudhary, Rashi Peripherals.
Manoj Pansari, Astrum explained, “Currently there is a bottleneck in reclaiming the GST on exports, if this process can be expedited it would ease the pressure on the export sector.”
“One of the most critical aspects which the government must ensure better clarity on is how tax benefits under GST can be extended to businesses dealing with unregistered service providers. Many small business owners, independent consultants, and freelancers have an annual turnover of less than INR 20 lakh and are therefore not required to register with the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN). Organisations employing the services of such unregistered vendors end up paying reverse GST on their end, but often don’t avail the input credit because of the misconception that the tax benefits don’t extend to such transactions. This locks up invaluable capital as unutilised input credit and can also potentially disrupt the operations of the larger supply chain. In order for GST to be truly effective, the government needs to deploy more proactive market-focussed measures to eliminate such misconceptions about and around GST. Moreover, there is a need to streamline the GST filing process, especially for the SMB sector,” commented Nitin Gupta, Konica Minolta.
“Items which are bought as a luxury should be kept in 28% slab. Electronics which are in 28% slab currently should be brought to 12% or 18%, Making GSTN fully functional, Raise the GST exemption limit, simplify rates, Exempt exports &lastly Import parity. Addressing these concerns will cut operational cost, reduce GSTN’s load and help small firms,” stated Ashish Mutneja, Quantum Hi Tech.
Sanjay Kalirona, COMIO Smartphones added, “Among the hurdles the biggest and the most important one is development of even stronger IT infrastructure because the whole functioning GST depends on IT. The government needs to pay more attention to attend to one of their own highlighted agendas behind bringing in GST that is to avoid tax evasion. The loop holes must be fixed so that the results could be achieved faster.”
“As a step forward, the Government should now focus on simplification of processes and remove ambiguity, about widely debated tax issues to ensure a painless experience for India. At the same time, it is incumbent on businesses on businesses to quickly adapt to these changes and support the Government in making the GST a success story in India,” said Vinit Agarwal, Aisen.
Kunal Nagarkatti, Clover Infotech said, “I would urge the government to create more awareness around GST and empower SMEs, MSMEs, start-ups etc. with the necessary assistance to comply with GST mandates.”
“Compliance with Anti – Profiteering Provisions, Technology Solutions for GST Compliance and supply chain model needs immediate attention to make GST transition all the smoother, as against the glitches last year,” stated Riya Kabra, Truvison.
Sharan Maini, JVC added, “Still work is needed to be done towards rationalizing the GST structure like simplifying tax return forms, measures should be taken to reduce the number of items excluded from the GST and more anti-tax evasion measures. More importantly the government should gradually try to reduce the number of Tax slab.”
