'Implement GST in a business-friendly way'

 Calling for introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime at the earliest, Wipro Ltd CFO Suresh K Senapaty on Tuesday exhorted the government to implement it in a way that would accelerate business in India.

Speaking at a seminar organised by Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) along with Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) Bangalore chapter, Senapaty said, “We should create a win-win situation for industrialists and government.

The tax regime via GST should not create unnecessary hurdles for the business community,” he said.

On the topic of revenue sharing, Senapaty said industries prefer a revenue neutrality regime to overcome hurdles.

“We should go in for simplification of the tax regime and here we should keep a well balanced approach of a 16-20 per cent range on tax,” he said.

Senapaty also pointed out that IT filing in the country is problematic, consuming the time and energy of filers. “We want to put in place a hassle-free system that business community can file taxes via GST mechanism,” he said. “We should also constitute an empowered committee to deal with taxation issues arising out of divergence of interest between Centre and states,” he added.

On the state’s perspective of the issue, Karnataka Commissioner of Commercial Taxes Ajay Seth, IAS said ,“We have proactively participated in the GST initiatives of the Centre and established a registry for entrepreneurs to file VAT similar to that of GST being promulgated by the Centre to give a PAN number of GST tax filing,” he said.