Chinese Propaganda Machinery Disrupting GST Adoption In India?
Chinese Propaganda Fuelling Anti-GST Movement in India
Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime came into effect since July 1st in India. Ever since that, there has been mixed response to the new tax structure.
While some are claiming that GST is the most advanced, and beneficial tax reform to have ever happened in India since Independence, there have been few who are vehemently opposing GST and its pan-India implementation.
Till now, we assumed that this is quite natural, considering the massive scale at which GST was implemented, changing everything related to taxes in India.
But now, new reports are emerging, which claims that there is a Chinese propaganda behind disrupting GST adoption in India.
Is it true?
Chinese Are Fuelling Anti-GST Movement – Govt. Sources
A new report has emerged in Hindustan Times, wherein an unnamed Govt. source has claimed that Chinese are behind this whole movement to stop GST adoption in the country.
That unnamed Govt. source said, “This was a campaign engineered by Chinese companies,”
The campaign mentioned here is regarding social media outage over high taxes on sanitary napkins, which have been going on since last few weeks.
Activists and social media users have been opposing 12% GST slab on sanitary napkins, and as per unnamed Govt. source, Chinese are behind this campaign.
But Why Chinese Propaganda?
Because China accounts for 25% of overall sanitary napkins being sold in India, and without GST, the local manufacturers won’t be able to compete against them.
Hence, while local manufacturers of sanitary napkins are happy, the social media has aggressively erupted, opposing the 12% tax slab.
That official further said, “So these are outrages (over sanitary napkins) manufactured with vested interests (read Chinese). It is easy to spread as most people don’t bother to understand logic of taxing a product,”
Almost the same reason has been attributed to the 5% GST slab for products meant for handicaps, such as Braille, talking books, wheelchairs etc.
As per Govt. sources, if these products are taxed 0%, then the manufacturers cannot claim input tax credit, but the protesters are not able to understand this.
That same unnamed Govt. source said, “Since the final consumer tax is lower than the tax on inputs, a manufacturer can claim refund. If these devices were taxed at zero percent then there would be no tax credits making them more expensive..”
Opposition parties have jumped into the anti-GST campaigns, and these are not helping the cause.
Last month, Rahul Gandhi said, “GST on disability aids like wheelchairs and Braille typewriters once again shows this government’s complete insensitivity towards our most vulnerable. Congress Party demands a full rollback of this ‘disability tax’ that will put millions of our disabled people through further hardship..”
Steep GST on hybrid cars and some textile products has also faced severe opposition.
Now, the question is: Are these anti-GST protests because of genuine reasons, or is the Chinese propaganda machinery behind them as well?
Do let us know, by sharing your opinions and comments right here.
Here are advantages of GST implementation, which are getting side-lined because of the protests:
GST Effect: Flipkart, Amazon Will Resume Order Deliveries To UP, Bihar
