Allaying apprehensions of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) over "complexities" of GST, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the proposed taxation system will end the cobweb of various taxes and "miseries" being faced by the trading community. A CAIT delegation led by National Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal on Saturday met Finance Minister Jaitley and put forth their reservations over the proposed GST and the complexities its presents. "The Finance Minister has assured that the proposed GST will be a simplified taxation system, which will eradicate miseries being faced by trading community in present taxation system," Khandelwal told PTI here.

Jaitley also promised that the GST will end the cobweb of various taxes levied at different stages from production to distribution and will also bring an end to multiple authority taxation regime. "GST is aimed at removing distortions in tax regime arising out of multiplicity of taxes and exemption. At the same time it will give every opportunity to traders and other stakeholders to make a voluntary compliance which will result into widening of tax base," the minister told traders.

Earlier in the week, CAIT had opposed the proposed GST and had recommended to the government that GST in its present format is very complex for traders. "The proposed GST, the biggest tax reform in the country, the central and state GST are to be paid to the accounts of the Central and state governments separately," Khandelwal had said. He had further said that there is also a levy of an additional tax on supply of goods and services, not exceeding 1 per cent in the course of inter-state trade or commerce, for a period of two years.

"The proposed GST is very complex for the traders to comply with. We demand single tax GST with single authority coupled with uniform Act and tax rates across the country and develop India on a concept of 'one Mandi'. The stakeholders cannot be taken for granted and the proposed form of GST is not acceptable to us," he had said. The government is hopeful of passing the Constitutional Amendment Bill for GST in the coming Parliament session.