Lack of clarity on GST slab, Kota stone traders miffed
Kota stone traders are demanding clarification on the GSTtaxslabfromtheGSTCouncil.
The traders want the stone to havenomorethan5%GSTasthe traders claim that it’s mostly used by the middle class.
TheGSTdepartmenthasclarifiedthatonlyrawKotastonewill attract 5% GST whereas processed Kota stone will be in 18% GST tax slab.
Mukesh Tyagi, general secretary of Hadoti Kota Stone Industries Association (HKSIA), Kota, said that before GST, the Value Added Tax (VAT) was 2%.
InJuly,theUniongovernment announced two GST tax slabs of 5% and 28% on Kota stone.
Later, it was clarified that it’s 5%. The then sales tax commissioner, Rajasthan, Jaipur (now state GST commissioner) Alok Gupta had written to the joint commissioners, salestax departmentonAugust21,2017,inwhich he said that KotaStone, whether or not roughly trimmed or merely cut by sawing or otherwisewillfallunder5%GSTwhile tiles will fall under 28% GST.
Before the traders could start paying 5% GST, Union finance ministerArunJaitleyinOctober statedthatGSTonKotastonehas been reduced from 28% to 18%.
Thiscreatedconfusionamong traders,whohadassumedittobe 5%, said HKSIA president Chut-
KOTA:
tan Lal Sharma.
He said that since Jaitley’s announcement, the central and state GSTofficials are not giving a written statement on the tax slab.
“Since most of the Kota stone processing units are sawing or cuttingthestoneandnotprocessingthem,itshouldinviteonly5% GST.”
“TheKotastonecostsbetween ₹18 and ₹20 per square feet and is used in flooring mostly by poor and middle-class people as it is affordable compared to marble (between ₹40 and ₹1,000 per square feet), so keeping them bothinsameGSTslabof18%will hit business badly.”
The state government is also recovering royalty of ₹121 per tonne which recently has been hikedto₹154pertonne,soit’slike adoubleblowto Kotastonetraders, he said.
“Kotastonetradeoffers direct andindirectemploymenttoover 2 lakh people in Kota region so it should be kept in the lowest tax slab of 5%,” he said.
Chuttan Lal Sharma warned thattradersmaylaunchamovement if the government doesn’t clarify and the stone is put it under 5% tax slab.
Deputycommissioner,central GST, Naresh Bundel said that there is no confusion.
RawKotastoneexcavatedduring mining will attract 5% GST while any kind of processing or change in form will attract 18% GST.