Hyderabad: The Telangana govt has received over 1500 complaints about shops, hotels and commercial establishments selling products and services above MRP. The businessmen are misusing the GST in the pretext of higher tax slabs for different commodities.
The hotels and bakeries were found to be violating the rules of GST. Whereas, hotels where there was more confusion due to four categories of GST rates in AC and non-AC categories, are charging extra citing the increase in prices, reports DC.
Seventy percent of the complaints are from semi-urban and rural areas in districts, while 30 percent of the complaints were from the GHMC limits.
Commercial taxes secretary Somesh Kumar has warned the traders and shopkeepers of stringent actions if they are found to be violating regulations. He said the GST Act empowers the government to cancel GST licences of such traders and shopkeepers.
“We have asked our officials and staff to focus more on semi-urban and rural areas, which are prone to exploitation. They have been asked to take up inspection of shops and commercial establishments and interact with consumers to know their grievances,” he said.
The implementation of GST in the services sector has been posing a major challenge to the government. Beauty saloons, photography laboratories unregistered cab services and mechanic shops were seeking payments in cash. There are more chances of evasion of taxes by the traders who ask for payment in cash to avoid 18 % GST.