If anyone in the audience at the Ravindra Bharathi harboured doubts about an awareness meeting on GST being technically drab and dull, there was more than one instance when they broke into applause and laughter.
Key among those who generated laughter were Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Commercial Taxes & Excise Principal Secretary Somesh Kumar. The Union Minister explained how it would be so depressing to find a political leader expressing support in the Lok Sabha and how another leader of the same party would make a U-turn in the Rajya Sabha. “It has been a long, arduous exercise that took a lot of patience to turn GST into a reality,” he said. The senior bureaucrat sought to allay fears of Chartered Accountants and Company Secretaries, who thought there were 37 forms that themselves and their clients needed to fill up. He pointed out how it was a maximum of 14 a year and also how GSTR 2 and 3 forms would contain the figures represented by GSTR 1. Mr. Somesh Kumar suddenly pulled out an at least two-metre long bill that he said were the monthly provisions and other purchases his wife had made on Saturday at an international departmental store. “Believe me, she did not buy up everything in the store, but the store gave out individual break-up of each category of provisions instead of totalling it up and adding GST to it.
That was not all. “Yesterday, I brought to the notice of the Minister, Telangana-specific problems. Sectors like granite, beedi-rolling, textiles and Government contracts need less tax. Mr. Minister, Telugu-speaking people are great cinema-lovers so if you can do something about the 18% and 28%, people watching films will think about the Centre every time” he said, to laughter.
