Mangaluru: A seminar on the benefits of ‘Goods and Service Tax’ was conducted in the Mangalore University campus in Hampankatta on Saturday, September 24. More than 200 students of the commerce department were seen among the audience of college staff and distinguished experts in the field of Commerce and Industries.
M C Dinesh, President of the Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FKCCI) said that there is an explosion of information on Goods and Service Tax (GST) and that it is all left for the students to decipher the information and make sense of it.
“GST is not a revolutionary idea. More than 160 countries all over the world have implemented this tax system so that all the taxation happens only once. The European countries all have different currencies but still they came up with ‘Euro’, a common currency for all the countries of the European Union. Though India has a single currency, there is a difference in tax structure in every state. This will be eliminated and a single tax system will be introduced after the GST is in place”, he told the gathering.
GST will be brought in due to increased productivity and eliminating unwanted delays. M C Dinesh gave an example of how the introduction of GST will make life easier for truck drivers in India. After the truck owner has paid the right amount of GST, travel between the source and destination will be unrestricted and hassle-free as there will not be check posts in any other state of India.
“The FKCCI has already started workshops on GST to educate and teach people about the importance of this tax. Such workshops were organised in various districts of Karnataka but for Mangaluru, this is a first. I am so happy to see so many students who have come to listen to the talk”, said the President.
B T Manohar, the Chairman of State Tax Commission and a GST committee member; B V Murali Krishna, the Joint Commissioner for Commercial Tax Office (Government of Karnataka); J R Bangera, an alumni of the University College Hampankatta who was also a former FKCCI President and Uday Kumar, the Principal of the college were also present at the event.
Murali Krishna and B T Manohar spoke about the general benefits of GST, along with the plausible cons of it. For the students of college’s commerce department, it was a Saturday well spent.
