Those who are evading taxes don’t want GST: Adi Godrej

From being termed the biggest tax reform of independent India to ‘an example of national integration’, GST means different things to different people. Veteran industrialist and Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej believes the new tax regime will catapult India into a higher GDP growth trajectory and curb black money. For businesses, it will make things easier than ever before. But there might be temporary pain for long-term gain. Excerpts:

When first proposed, GST was supposed to be the tax that would streamline business processes for corporates. Now that GST is here, does it meet the initial expectations?

I think it has been worked out very well. The whole procedure and rates have been worked out in a manner that will add value to the economy. It will mean less paperwork. Earlier, we were doing different paper work for different States. Every factory had to work out excise duty separately. Now, it will all be simplified.

But traders and some corporates have been saying that filing multiple returns in a year will increase paper work.

One must not pay attention to them. They are making excuses to delay (the implementation). You must remember that those who are evading taxes and converting it into black money don’t want GST to come.

Once GST is implemented, there will not be opportunities to evade taxes and their business model will be dead. All over the world, GST works very well. If there were complaints, it would have come through the large associations of the country. No association has complained.

Given the various rate tiers in GST, how will the Godrej group be affected by the new tax regime?

We feel it will be very good for our group and most of our companies will benefit. We are already planning to expand output because the requirements will go up over the years.

But aren’t measures like de-stocking impacting the group?

It might, temporarily. Any change has temporary effect and it is quickly overcome. We are fully geared for it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the country goes into a much higher GDP growth rate (post GST).

When state VAT was first brought in instead of State sales tax, some States did not join. But quickly they came on board as other States’ revenues were growing.

The year after that was the only year when we had 9 per cent GDP growth rate. I expect in 2018-19, we will have a very good growth rate due to GST impact.

What's your opinion on provisions such as anti-profiteering clause in GST? Will your pricing policy be affected in any way in the new tax regime?

We have a law called MRP (maximum retail price). For those items that don’t need MRP, there is no problem. They won’t be affected.

We will have to see (about pricing). Pricing is generally affected more by competition than anything else.

See what has happened in telecom. Pricing for us will depend on cost and competition.

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