GST (Goods and Services Tax), as we know, has changed the way many businesses operate. A lot has been said, debated upon and written on its pros & cons, and how it will affect the future of various industries.
The application of GST has indirectly, if not directly, affected Prints Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Books, periodicals and journals are counted as ‘exempted goods’ under Goods and Services Act, 2017, and our company is purely into the business of export and trading of these goods.
It has also been specially mentioned that any person engaged exclusively in the business of supplying goods or services or both, is not liable to tax or wholly exempted from tax under this Act or under the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act.
Hence, based on this, Prints Publications is not required to register under Goods and Services Act.
But many of our vendors and suppliers have registered under the GST due to their different nature of business and product lines. We are too asked for the GST Number of our company, but at times, it’s difficult to explain and convince them that we don’t fall under the GST regime.
We pay GST on a number of services like logistics, computers, packing material we buy, to our software service providers and many others. But we don’t get any impact credit because of our product line and nature of business. We don’t have any advantage in terms of refunds. It would have been better for us, had we fallen under GST regime, as we could then avail input credit for the taxes we are paying for various goods and services.
But on the contrary, we would have to follow the strict compliance of GST Act, which would have involved a lot of time and resources at our end.
I also feel that there’s a lot that the Govt. needs to do for the GST Act. I come across many people and even companies that are unclear about this new tax system, which leads to many confusions and conflicts. I have also noticed that even professionals in the accounting field are confused and don’t possess 100% knowledge about GST and its norms.
Thought the success or failure of GST is a question that only time will answer, I feel we should now just focus on getting more knowledge about it in order to implement it in the right way.
