Hyderabad: The business community of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have raised concerns over the proposed rate of GST, which they feel is even higher than than all the current taxes put together. Speaking on the sidelines of an interactive with the Telangana government, Fapcci president Shiv Kumar Rungta said, “The GST has been proposed at 24 per cent on all products and services which is more than the current excise duty, CST and VAT put together.”
Currently, taxes upto 19.36 per cent are levied on a product and these taxes include excise duty (12.36 per cent), central sales tax (2 per cent) and VAT (5 per cent). The associations presented a memorandum to Telangana commercial tax minister T. Srinivas Yadav and requested him to take up the issue with the Centre. “We are not opposing the GST, but we are just the rate to be slashed to 14-15 per cent,” said Mr Rungta.
The associations have also requested the state government to include industry representatives while formulating policies for them. “The MSME sector contributes 42 per cent to exports, while contributing 0.7 per cent to Centre’s GDP and 1.2 per cent to state GDP. Also, 40 per cent of employment comes from the SME sector. But the sector is not consulted while making polices,” a businessman said.
