Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, inaugurated the GST Sahayata Help Desk, set up by the Udupi branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India on its office premises, here on Friday.
On the occasion, Ms. Sitharaman said the Goods and Services Tax was a non-manual fully digitised way of carrying out transactions for businesses. They would also have to pay their taxes digitally.
Many small, medium and big industries had questions about the GST. The ICAI was acting as an enabler and was helping to answer the queries on GST through this help desk, she said.
Shobha Karandlaje, MP; Rekha Devanand, chairperson of Udupi branch of ICAI, and Narasimha Nayak, office-bearer, were present.
Earlier, at an interaction programme organised by the Udupi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ms. Sitharaman said the GST would help widen the tax base. There would be teething problems for a couple of months after the GST is rolled out on July 1.
She had already attended an inter-ministerial group meeting where the issues of readiness to help people on GST were discussed. Over 250 frequently asked questions on GST were available on online. “But we are ready to attend to other queries also,” Ms. Sitharaman said.
Srikrishna Rao Kodancha, president of the UCCI, was present.
