Sushant Jain: Overall the GST impact has been positive

What has been the impact of GST on your customers? How are your customers coping with multiple GST slabs, tracking of invoices and movement of goods across state borders?
Overall, the impact has been positive, I must say. It can only get better in the future. At Galgo, we create a positive impact by not letting our customers face any GST hassles from our side. We were able to generate 101 invoices within the first week of the GST regime and ensured smooth business for our clients. Customers are still trying to cope up with multiple GST slabs and tracking of invoices due to lack of information from the government. Multiple slabs are confusing because our customers purchase raw materials at lower slab and sell at higher. So the difference becomes an added cost to the customer. In some cases, a customer buys raw material at higher tax rates and sells the final product at lower tax rates. This leads to having a lot of funds held in the form of Input Tax Credit (ITC).

Do you believe it’s in our best interest that all our (printing and packaging industry) the tangible products are covered under HSN (Goods) so that there is a greater chance of coming under the manufacturing sector and acquiring industry status?
The most important aspect of covering all tangible products under HSN code will mainly be to reduce the chances of misinterpretation of the product/commodity and enable accurate application of the tax rate. This will help reconcile the fragmented paper industry structure in India, promoting investments and global competitiveness.  Moreover, this will help the government generate statistical data of commodity-wise sale, purchase and tax collection to frame its policies and take macro-level economic decisions; down the line, we see a good chance of industry status to printing and packaging sector.

The Ministry of Finance issued a Notification No 31/2017 Central Tax (Rate) dated 13 October 2017, which formalised the decisions regarding the GST rates at the 22nd Council meeting on 6 October 2017. Is there clarity, finally? Please name one thing on your wish list for the government.
Well, the wish list for GST is too many to list but something that is fundamental for everything else is a mechanism to ensure better response to queries or issues and better infrastructure for the businessman to be at ease and not think of GST as a disease.