MADURAI: The Agrofood Chamber has profusely thanked Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr.M.K.Stalin and Finance Minister Mr.P.T.R.Palanivel Thiagarajan for constituting an Advisory Council in the State to identify the compliance issues and difficulties experienced by trade and industry with regard to GST rates applied to various commodities to bring them to the notice of GST Council.
“Our Agrofood Chamber has been insisting on this right from the year 2019. We thank the CM and Finance Minister for constituting an advisory council under the chairmanship of senior Supreme Court advocate Mr.Aravind P.Datar to look into the GST difficulties and compliance issues,” said Mr.S.Rethinavelu, president, Agrofood Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in a press release issued in Madurai on 4th April 2022.
TERMS OF REFERENCE:
He pointed out in the press statement that a progressive taxation system called Goods and Services Tax (GST) which was welcomed by the trade and industry with a hope that it would be a ‘Good and Simple Tax’ has turned out to be a ‘tax terrorism’ especially for MSMEs due to haphazard implementation.
Mr.Rethinavelu has said that the Agrofood Chamber had suggested formation of a ‘GST Council of Trade and Industry’ to be convened before every meeting of GST Council of Ministers to ventilate the grievances of trade and industry particularly MSMEs.
“We are very grateful to Tamil Nadu government that the advisory council headed by Mr.Datar would identify the problems with the institutional mechanism that support GST. It is also a sigh of relief that as per the terms of reference, the advisory council would look into the compliance issues faced by large industries, MSMEs, service sector and consumers to bring them to the notice of the GST Council after identifying difficulties with respect to GST rates applied to various commodities,” he added.
Stating that the Agrofood Chamber sees a ray of hope to solve GST difficulties, the Agrofood Chamber president hoped that the practical difficulties faced by ‘traders’ and their plight would be considered under MSMEs by the advisory council. “We request the Datar council to widely tour all the trade and industrial centres of Tamil Nadu and to hear the views of leading chambers of commerce before submitting its report. We also hope that other States would emulate Tamil Nadu in this regard in order to have a consensus in the GST Council. The TN government took a very good move by constituting an advisory council on GST rates issues,” Mr.Rethinavelu has said in the press release here today.
