The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s immediate intervention in simplifying the goods and services tax GST system. The traders’ body has written to Modi explaining the problems faced by the traders due to a complicated GST system. On February 26, the CAIT has called for “Bharat Vyapar Bandh” to register its protest against the current GST system.
It has highlighted the need to streamline e-commerce rules and policies to save domestic trade. The traders’ body has also claimed that “the clutches of malpractices of big e-commerce companies” have impacted businesses of the off-line retailers.
The CAIT has prescribed formation of a "special working group" comprising tax experts and senior government officials along with members from CAIT to review the GST structure and thrash out ways that would simply the tax process. CAIT added that the difference between " error" and "evasion" needs to be defined and spelled out clearly and without any ambiguity. It also said that penalties even for a small error has brought back the culture of 'tax terrorism' in the country. It is also acting as a discouragement to honest tax collectors.