Bengal to seek GST deferment: Amit Mitra

Reiterating that small and medium- sized traders in the country were not prepared for the Goods and Services Tax, the West Bengal government has decided to write to the Centre again requesting for postponement of the roll-out of the new tax system on July 1.

"Small and medium-sized traders in the country are not prepared for the GST. And we can foresee that we are heading towards a disastrous situation. We are again writing to the Centre to reconsider the roll-out from July 1 and postpone it until the nation is ready for it," finance minister Amit Mitra told reporters on Tuesday.

Referring to a report that small traders in Surat were opposing the roll-out of GST because they have "no idea" about the system, Mitra said that the Centre must rethink and postpone the introduction of the new tax regime.

"Not only in West Bengal but we have been getting reports from around 5,000 small and medium traders in Surat are eyeing closure of their businesses because of the GST," he said.

"We have repeatedly said in the GST council that the roll-out must be done systematically. In other countries like Germany and Japan, they had given 12 to 18 months before the introduction of such tax system," he said.

Meanwhile,Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said people may have to face some difficulty initially as the GST is rolled out but in the long run the new indirect tax regime would help cut tax evasion and check price rise. He also said the GST Council will look at bringing real estate within the GST net by next year and revisit taxing of petroleum products under the new regime in 1-2 years.

"To begin with, people could face some difficulties because any change over has its own problems. But it will settle down and the country will benefit from the new indirect tax regime," Jaitley said at an event organised by a news channel.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be launched on July 1 and will subsume a host of indirect levies like excise, service tax and VAT.

While products like kerosene, naphtha and LPG will be under the ambit of GST, five items -- crude oil, natural gas, aviation fuel, diesel and petrol have been excluded from the basket for the initial years.

Jaitley said that while negotiating with the states on GST there were some "tough" issues like petroleum and potable alcohol on which states were unwilling to leave their taxation powers.