Extend GST benefits to customers: Sushil Modi

Bengaluru: Members of the High Powered Committee on the Goods and Services Tax ( GST) ,which met in the city on Saturday, warned manufacturers and dealers that they would invite action if they did not pass on the additional profit accrued after the nationalisation of GST rates to their  customers. Chairman of the committee Sushil Modi,  who held a meeting here, said the  people and businesses were now getting used to the new tax regime. "Both the Centre and states have started registering a revenue of Rs 90-95,000 crore a month. And the revenue losses of the states ,which were pegged at 28.8 per cent in August this year,  have come down to 17.6 per cent. This shows the states are on a path to recovery. The Centre has come forward to help 17 states, which had registered a steep fall in revenue," he added. Pointing out that the tax system, being new, would have  teething problems, Mr Modi said  the success of GST depended greatly on its online network. “GST filing has been automated now and at our last meeting in Guwahati, a lot of decisions were taken and many issues resolved. We  asked Infosys, which is handling the GST network, to put more qualified people on the job and over the last 40 days it has deployed over 100 engineers for GST work. In many states, 30 resident engineers have been put to work and hopefully, this will help ease the problem. We have told Infosys that forms  related to taxpayers should be incorporated into the GST network to make it more user- friendly and interactive," he said.

Acknowledging that there were some glitches and people could not edit their filings, he said that a new version of Form B,  Form-B3 had been introduced to overcome such problems.