Citizens are beginning to feel the GST pinch as contrary to what they were promised, most items of necessities including eating in restaurants have become dearer. People are not being passed the benefits of GST as ‘Input Tax Credits’ (ITC) are not being adjusted wherever necessary which has resulted in prices shooting up when they should have fallen drastically for many commodities. This is a dilemma in our country that cost increase gets passed to consumers without fail but not when it is the other way round.
The government did talk about the anti-profiteering law which I suppose should come into force so that people are not looted in broad daylight. GST is the biggest indirect tax reform our country has ever introduced but it’s successful implementation depends on many factors including citizens cooperation. It is cultural change on how you do business and people’s positive response to the whole environment. GST is simplification of tax structure in the country and one hopes the initial hiccups are teething problems that would be taken care of in the coming weeks.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
