CII Mysuru and ICSI organised a special interactive session on ‘GST Law: Overview, Impact, Challenges & Roadmap’ here on Monday, as its introduction will impact business concerns.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) laws, as passed by Parliament, raise several questions and the implications need to be understood by every business concern to prepare for a smooth transition to GST, the organisers said.
In his address, G.V. Krishna Rao, Commissioner, Central Excise, Customs and Service Tax, Mysuru Commissionerate, said: “The date has been fixed and as per the official communication we received from Ministry of Finance, GST has to be implemented from July 1. We have conducted awareness programmes on GST, which was started a year back. Six months ago, we were trying to market GST, but now people are aware of it.”
In GST, there are three departmental aspects: legal preparedness, administrative preparedness, and technology preparedness. All the legal preparedness will be completed by May 15.
With regard to administrative preparedness, the departments are going to be reorganised, and two zones that as of now are Mysuru and Bengaluru zones will be merged and known as Karnataka Central GST zone, to be headed by the Chief Commissioner, he explained.
By May 15, administrative-related works will be completed. To get acclimatised to the new set-up, GST-related works will start from June 1 itself. With regard to technology, which is handled by different agencies and headed by CEO, they were ready with the technology six month back itself, Mr. Rao added.
Arjuna Ranga, chairman, CII Mysuru, said: “GST is going to change all our lives. It is like formatting a hard disk to install new software that you want and start working from ground zero. GST has proven that in the long term, it will have a huge impact on the cultural and ecosystem.”
“If we look at two countries that failed in GST implementation, Ukraine and Pakistan, they could not manage cost escalation that happened, and that collapsed the entire system. Over the years, they have reformed, and we have many lessons to learn from them,” he said, in a release here.
Over 150 participants from various industries took part in the daylong interactive session.
