The Commercial Taxes Department J&K Jammu today organized an interactive session on Goods and Services Tax (GST) here at Kathua to educate the trading fraternity, members of the Bar, Chartered Accountants Sales tax practitioners and other stakeholders about the new Tax regime. Assistant Commissioners Commercial Taxes Jammu Afshan Masood and Kanchan Bala were the prominent speakers.Speaking on the occasion Afshan Masood said that the Goods and Services tax is an indirect tax to be levied when a consumer buys a good or a service. It is intended to replace all indirect taxes that the consumer is currently paying. Apart from the central excise duty or service tax, there are indirect taxes levied at multiple points on every product or service — be it VAT/sales tax, octroi, luxury tax—which all add up to inflate the price of the goods or services.
Elaborating on the topic, Kanchan Bala said that GST is expected to help in seamless flow of goods and services, unifying India into a single national market. She said the new tax regime can improve ease of doing business. The current taxation structure has created compartmentalization of markets due to many inter-State taxes which didn’t qualify for credits. GST might simplify the taxation structure and remove distortions in allocation of resources, she added.Earlier, the CTOs and resource persons of Commercial Taxes Department explained the benefits of GST and added that the act is in the stage of infancy and will further the economic unification of the nation. GST will also help in creating more jobs besides giving impetus to e-commerce. It was further explained that the implementation of the act would help in eliminating the ill effects of cascading. Suggestions were sought from the trading fraternity and all the queries raised were replied on the spot.Among others CTO Sania Haq Khan, Meenakshi Jasrotia, Gurpinder Singh, R K Badgal and Inspector Sachin Gupta were present on the session.