Traders miffed as technical snags pose hurdles for GST implementation

BENGALURU: Traders in the city are miffed with the Union government for unleashing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system on them without giving them adequate time or support to get a hang of the new tax regime. With less than a week to go for businesses to file their GST Returns (GSTR1), they are still grappling with the online returns filing process which has thrown up a plethora of technical issues.

Keeping track of all the information required for filing the returns itself has become a Herculean task and there has been a 40-50 percent drop in their businesses post the GST implementation, traders alleged. Further, due to technical snags in the system, payments are not being credited on the same day, they said.
A section of them, representing associations across different sectors submitted memoranda to Bangalore Central MP, PC Mohan  on Wednesday. At a meeting conducted by Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce (FKCCI) here, they urged Mohan to voice their concerns with the Centre.

FKCCI president K Ravi said the MSME sector was the worst-hit as those running small businesses were still not well equipped with the IT infrastructure. Export businesses too were suffering losses as their working capital was locked owing to delay of input credit refund from the government, he said. October 10 is the deadline to file GSTR1 and the government has said there will not be any extension.