VIJAYAWADA: After hotel industry, it is now the turn of textile industry to oppose Goods and Services Tax (GST) slabs. The Andhra Prdesh Textile Federation (APTF) is agitated over the proposed tax slabs on various textiles and demanding to waive the GST on clothes. The GST Council has proposed 18 per cent tax on yarn, 5 per cent on dying and printing units, additional 5 per cent in case the cloth material has extra work mostly in case of women clothing.
The readymade clothing was taxed at 12 per cent along with 18 per cent on yarn. In addition to all these taxes, 5 per cent tax is proposed for retailers who are having an annual turnover of more than '20 lakh per year.
The cloth retailers objected to this move as most of the retailers are small-time vendors. President of APTF, Busireddy Malleswara Reddy, said that more than 80 per cent of the people buy their clothes from local merchants. Taxing these small-time merchants will put them on the receiving end as they do not have proper computer knowledge to upload bills and maintain accounts.
More importantly, they are eking out their livelihood especially in rural areas with little margins, he said. General secretary of APTF Batchu Venkata Narasimha Rao said that the state government exempted textile retailers from Value Added Tax (VAT) after they have protested across the state in 2011. Now the decision to impose GST on every textile retailer will bring back the woes of the merchants and they have no other way but to protest against it, he said.
All the taxes on textiles should be limited to manufacturing level, he said, as it would ease out the burden on retailers and the consumers. Mr Narasimha Rao demanded that the state government take up the matter with the Union finance minister to see that the 5 per cent tax on textile retailers is exempted.
