Kottayam: The Kerala state IT Association AKITDA (All Kerala IT Dealers Association) has requested the GST Council to reconsider the GST rates levied on the IT products. The association has also requested the council to make a common tariff of flat 12 percent across all the IT product line.
The letter to the GST Council by the association reads, “AKITDA is a registered association that represents more than 2500 dealers registered under GST and at the time of VAT, computer and IT products were charged at 5 percent. However, all the products come under 18 percent GST while some products including multi-function printers, monitors, and projectors are listed under 28 percent GST.” The letter also says that for the promotion of digital India, IT is the backbone and should be taxed at reasonable rates.
The communication also clarifies that such huge taxes will not impact the B2B segment like organization, enterprises and other corporates as they might have input credits for the products they buy for business entities. The association feels that the tax structure will impact the common man, farmers, and students.
The association has requested to make a common slab of 12 percent for the IT products. It also has to be noted that the associations including national IT forum, FAIITA has met union minister for IT, Ravishankar Prasad and had presented the concerns of IT industry. In a letter to the Government, Saket Kaput, Gen. Secretary of the association has said that the national forum is representing direct business interests of its 30,000 (thirty thousand) pan India member-business organizations, pursuing business nearing Rs. 20,000.00 crores. The same has been shared by the association in their official group on Facebook.
ASIRT, the Mumbai based association of system integrators and retailers had recently met BJP president Amit Shah and put forward the concerns of the retailers due to GST and requested 12 percent flat GST rate across IT products.