Fixing GST

Prosenjit: How has the GST experience been so far? Let us start with you Anita..

Anita Rastogi: I would say that it was a great initiative by the government to bring in GST last year and I must congratulate not only tax officers and the government but also people at large, taxpayers, because all of them came together to make it succeed. We are aware that a change of such magnitude will bring in glitches and were ready for it. But technology let us down. We did not expect it to be so bad.

While the GST rollout was overall good, it was a little bumpy for various sectors and people. Overall, from an economy perspective, it's done decently well.

Yes, there will always be challenges. Consumers and industry had to grapple with multiple rates. There have been issues of classification and some disputes on tax rate on some products. But the government is committed to rate rationalisation; I hope it happens soon.

We never expected GST to bring so much litigation so soon. There are writs being filed left, right and centre. There have been advance rulings and it is a sad scenario with two different states giving different views on the same issue. But the union government is also looking at this area.

I have a suggestion on advance ruling. At the first stage itself, when multiple applications are being filed across the country in different states and it is all being done digitally, somebody could take charge at the central level and decide on which issues the advance ruling authorities have to give a ruling. And ensure that if there are 7 or 10 companies which have gone for the same issue on a similar fact, we do not have to deal with divergent advance rulings.

Overall I think a lot of things went right, but we need to move ahead. We are waiting for the petroleum sector to be brought under GST I think that