Bengal advisor seeks urgent GST council meet to scrap tax hike in textile
Kolkata Dec 24 PTI Amit Mitra the advisor to West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday requested Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to hold an urgent meeting of the GST Council and rescind the seven per cent tax hike in the textiles sector to prevent job loss and closure of small units The union government had notified to increase the tax on natural fibre products from 5 per cent to 12 per cent including apparels in the lower tax bracket with effect from January 1 2022 If the tax is not reversed then the impact will be huge with job loss to 15 lakh people including those engaged in ancillary industry and closure of one lakh small units A lot of units will revert to the informal sector Mitra told reporters in a virtual media meet He accused the Centre of not discussing the issue in the GST council before announcing the hike in tax Mitra who is the former finance minister of the state said that at a time when wholesale inflation in the country is already 14 per cent the additional burden of seven per cent tax on textile will push it up and cause loss of job The sector engages 39 million people He said that the government is hurting 80 per cent of the textile industry to correct the inverse tax issue in the man made textile sector Natural fibre segment constitute 80 per cent of the Rs 54 lakh crore textile sector and its net profit margin is between one and three per cent making them vulnerable to any kind of cost impact The cotton sector is already reeling under 70 per cent inflation he said The government estimate of earning additional Rs 7000 crore from raising tax is mythical as a lot of units will close and many will who had recently come under the GST net will deregister and revert to being in the informal regime PTI BSM KK KK KK
Kolkata Dec 24 PTI Amit Mitra the advisor to West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday requested Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to hold an urgent meeting of the GST Council and rescind the seven per cent tax hike in the textiles sector to prevent job loss and closure of small units The union government had notified to increase the tax on natural fibre products from 5 per cent to 12 per cent including apparels in the lower tax bracket with effect from January 1 2022 If the tax is not reversed then the impact will be huge with job loss to 15 lakh people including those engaged in ancillary industry and closure of one lakh small units A lot of units will revert to the informal sector Mitra told reporters in a virtual media meet He accused the Centre of not discussing the issue in the GST council before announcing the hike in tax Mitra who is the former finance minister of the state said that at a time when wholesale inflation in the country is already 14 per cent the additional burden of seven per cent tax on textile will push it up and cause loss of job The sector engages 39 million people He said that the government is hurting 80 per cent of the textile industry to correct the inverse tax issue in the man made textile sector Natural fibre segment constitute 80 per cent of the Rs 54 lakh crore textile sector and its net profit margin is between one and three per cent making them vulnerable to any kind of cost impact The cotton sector is already reeling under 70 per cent inflation he said The government estimate of earning additional Rs 7000 crore from raising tax is mythical as a lot of units will close and many will who had recently come under the GST net will deregister and revert to being in the informal regime PTI BSM KK KK KK
