Post GST roll out, shopkeepers still in state of confusion of rates

Call it the goods and services tax effect, the coming festive season could be different from previous ones because the shopkeepers are not clear about the new tax rates.

According to Ankit Gupta, owner of Radha Krishna General Store at Bengali Market in New Delhi, he is charging separate GST rates for separate items and adding them up for to fix the final price.

Not only him, there are other shopkeepers like Gupta, who do not have any clarity on the tax rates, especially for "mixed supply".

For example, if a gift basket containing biscuits taxed at 18% and chocolates taxed at 28% will attract a GST of 28%. But this is not clear to many people.

According to Waman Parkhi, partner, indirect tax, at consultancy firm KPMG quoted in HT said that there is a lot of confusion on the GST rates for gift packages containing different items and people will have to pay more this year... these discrepancies need to be addressed by the government before the festive season kicks in.''

While there are four main tax slabs under GST - 5, 12, 18, 28, in reality there are many more.

OneIndia News