Nirmala Sitharaman seeks tax experts' inputs to correct GST flaws

Conceding that GST may have some flaws in its present form, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked tax professionals t to curse it and sought ir help to make it better. minister was replying to concerns raised by taxation industry professionals, who said industry was "cursing" government over how GST was implemented. Billed as biggest reform in indirect taxation, goods & services tax, which does away with a host of levies from federal to local government levels, was implemented on July 2017.

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Nirmala Sitharaman supports GST 

On several stakeholders "cursing" GST, Sitharaman even objected to a person who raised question and asked him t to damn law which was passed by Parliament and all state assemblies.

"After a long time, many parties in Parliament and in state assemblies worked toger and came up with Act. I kw you are saying this based on your experiences but suddenly we cant call 'what a goddamn structure it is'," minister said.

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She interacted with people from industries, chartered accountants, company secretaries and many or stakeholders in financial sector. Stating that it has been only two years since GST was implemented, she said she would have wished new structure was satisfactory from day one. She also said she wants all stakeholders to give some solutions for better compliance.

"We cant damn it might have flaws, it might probably give you difficulties but I am sorry, it is law of land," she ded.

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BM Sharma, a member of Cost Accountants Association, later explained why he said what he said. "I said that objective of GST was to ease of doing business, reduce tax complexities, rationalize 13 taxes, and reduce litigation and corruption. But same is t being achieved due to several problems and industries and professionals are complaining w," he said. As Sharma suggested some solutions, minister asked him to meet her in Delhi. Earlier during a presser, when asked about low GST collections, minister attributed it to difficulties due to wear-related disasters and also poor compliance.

"Yes, GST collection in some areas has t been strong eugh. Various districts in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Himachal, and Uttarakhand were flooded and we h to postpone filing returns from se areas," she said.

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Sitharaman on tax evasion

She also said revenue secretary has alrey formed a committee to identify where collection has t been equate as per our expectations. "We have some reports on how in some cases evasion has happened. committee will look into how this can be plugged and if re has been any under-invoicing," she said.