Bangalore, 05 September (H.S.) : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has welcomed the decision of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Board to implement tax reforms that were essential to reduce the financial burden and implementation hassles on the taxpayers and the business community.

In a press release here on Friday in this regard, he has claimed : This is not a new invention of the Narendra Modi government. When the NDA government implemented the flawed GST in 2017 in a hurry, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, and the leaders of the opposition parties had demanded the necessary reforms to the GST.

The 'Gabbar Singh Tax' will destroy the country's small traders. We have been saying for the last eight years that the complexity and cost of the tax payment system will trap their lives in a series of hardships. But Narendra Modi has ignored our words and has continued to ignore them, he alleged.

In reality, the GST tax system is completely in the hands of the central government, leaving state governments unable to do anything but groan in helplessness. In the GST system, the central government has one-third of the voting rights, while the states have two-thirds. To make any kind of reform in the GST system, a three-fourths majority is required. In this situation, even if all the states of the country come together and try to reform the tax, the central government can stop it. He said that the Narendra Modi government has been doing this for the last eight years.

It is clear that the central government's support for the GST reform effort undertaken by the GST Council is due more to the pressure exerted by the state governments than to their concern for the people. He said that if this had been done at the beginning, the people of the country would not have had to suffer unnecessarily due to the Gabbar Singh Tax system.

It is now the responsibility of the Central Government and the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBIC) to ensure that the benefits of GST reforms reach the consumers. It is also the responsibility of the Central Government to prevent traders and industrialists from misusing this tax reform to increase their profits, he said.

According to current estimates, the Karnataka government will lose an annual revenue of ₹15,000 to ₹20,000 crore due to the current GST reforms. However, keeping in mind the interests of the people of the state, our government welcomes this decision to bring reforms in the GST system. At the same time, the Central Government has demanded that the state be given its fair share of the GST compensation duty that is still being collected.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said in the statement that his government is committed to achieving economic development and ensuring that everyone gets a share of prosperity by increasing the purchasing power of the people and expanding the tax payer network.

Hindusthan Samachar / Rakesh Mahadevappa