The Madras Electric Trades Association (META) has appealed to the Centre to reduce GST rate for electrical items to 18 per cent from the proposed 28 per cent.
The higher rate of 28 per cent will lead to price increase in the range of 10-15 per cent for electrical items.
“With GST treating electric goods as luxury items, small and medium traders will suffer to withstand the high cost and thus affect the end customer too,” Hukmichand Shah, President, META, said in a statement.
The high tax rate will make it difficult for small and medium traders to survive and sustain.
Filing returns every month under the GST system will be a challenge for smaller traders as they work on small margins and are less-equipped to handle such things.
While the association welcomed GST, they urged the government to remove the anomalies in prescribed GST for the electrical items.
Since excise duty exemption for small manufacturers whose turnover is below ₹1.5 crore will be removed in GST regime, higher tax rate will create more sufferings to the small manufacturers, association felt.
META consists of about 1,800 members engaged in the business of electrical items. All of them together are doing a total business of about ₹2,000 crore a year.