NCHAA to organise GST awareness meet
Noida Customs House Agents Association (NCHAA), one of the 28 members of FFFAI, will soon be organising a seminar for customs brokers and freight forwarders and trade associates. The seminar will focus on GST.
To comply the new GST services within the industry, there needs to be a preparedness within the sector to project efficiency. S Ramakrishna, President, NCHAA and Vice Chairman, FFFAI, says, “I think each sector is prepared or getting prepared for implementation of GST. The logistics sector, especially the international players in freight forwarding and custom brokers have challenges which would bother for some time. However, since we as an industry rejig ourselves in adapting the changes fastest ever, therefore our challenges would be very temporary.”
According to Ramakrishna, now as most rules and regulations related to the GST are almost clear, with the help of professional and lawyers, FFFAI and its member associations are able to dwell upon the intricacies and nuances of GST. Noida Association would also be taking similar efforts in organising such seminars locally as well.
On expectations from the GST council, he said, “As logisticians our only expectation from the government is smooth transition both at the central and state level. The first stage of migration did have challenges of not mapping the entire indirect tax department like central excise, VAT etc., however on sending the messages to their help desk did resolve quite a bit of issues.” He however, highlighted the following challenges that need attention of the GST Council:
E- Token for the vehicles especially from freight forwarding industry perspective, where the containers or goods are offloaded at the premises of the EXIM trade.
In the case of closer proximity states (like NCR) where the operation is managed from one state (like Delhi) with fixed establishment but work is done at other state (like Haryana, UP etc) without any establishment, a custom broker will likely to face challenges from other states.
Export freight paid to Indian registered shipping companies and airlines for the goods that are exported.
Place of Supply, third country transactions, valuation and above all state-wise registration and return would be the biggest challenge.
As logisticians our only expectation from the government is smooth transition both at the central and state level