The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is one of the best possible tax system and will immensely benefit the trade and industry, said S. Kannan, Commissioner of Central Excise and Service Tax, Salem and Coimbatore.

The Union Government is committed to replace all the indirect taxes levied on goods and services by the Centre and State Governments and implement the GST by July this year.

With GST, it is anticipated that the tax base will be comprehensive and virtually all goods and services will be taxable, with minimum exemption, Mr. Kannan said while speaking at the inaugural session of the day-long seminar on GST demystified: issues and implications brought up by the Salem chapter of the Madras Management Association (MMA) and Neethi Associates in the city on Wednesday.

The programme has been arranged keeping in mind the proposed tax reforms and create awareness on the GST overview readiness and pitfalls.

He said that GST will be a game changing reform for the Indian economy by creating a common Indian market and by reducing the cascading effect of tax on the cost of goods and services.

It will impact the tax structure, tax incidence, tax computation, tax payment, compliance, credit utilization and reporting, leading to a complete overhaul of the current indirect systems.

The GST will play a major role in the progress of trade and industry and the Department of Central Excise and Service Tax is going all out to explain its salient features and benefits to the trading community and industrialists by organising out-reach programmes.

The Centre has attached much importance in disseminating the information on GST to its stake holders, he said.

Referring to the steps initiated by the Centre for the successful implementation of the GST, Mr. Kannan said that more than 60,000 staff of the Central Excise and Service Tax Department have already been imparted specialised training so far across the country.

The GST Council accounted for the Finance Ministers of all the states and it has already framed very effective rules after detailed deliberations at intense sessions.

The GST will be extremely IT driven and the government has created a separate GST network for uploading all the details.

The government departments are fairly getting ready for its implementation, he said and called upon the trade and industrial houses too to follow suit.

Urging the trade and industrial houses to extend total cooperation for the successful implementation of GST, Mr. Kannan said that the government has directed the concerned departments to be friendly and guide the stake holders properly.

S. Mohan, Chairman, Salem chapter of the MMA, presided over the inaugural.

S. Gnanakumar, Joint Commissioner, Commercial Taxes-enforcement; N. Sivanesan, president, Federation of All Trade and Industries Association of Erode district; K.V. Ganesan, chairman, MMA Namakkal chapter; K. Mariappan, president, The Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Salem; and Senthil Kumar, president, Salem Flat Promoters Association; spoke.

S. Arokiaraj, Joint Commissioner of Central Excise; C. Thiyagarajan, Deputy Commissioner, Central Excise; and Sangeeta Nehru, Deputy Commissioner, Central Excise; presided over the special sessions that followed.

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GST beneficial for traders, says official - The Hindu