On the eve of one year of GST rollout, the mood across different sections of the trade remains mixed.

A wholesale textile merchant in Coimbatore, while welcoming the tax regime, said a good number of his customers were women, who sold goods from their homes, and tailors, who sourced cloth from him to carry on job works.

“We source goods from Surat and sell them here. Till July last year, these women used to buy the material in bulk, at times in excess of ₹1.5 lakh and sell them in their neighbourhood. Now, with no GSTN, they are in a dilemma, limiting their purchases to below the ₹50,000. This has impacted our turnover,” said Mukesh, owner of Dinesh Textiles.

Many such traders have started raising sales invoice meticulously only after the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax and on the advice of their auditors.

Mukesh is no exception. In a brief chat with this correspondent, he said, “GST is now a given. The issue most of us have to reconcile with is the money we have to shell out to the auditor. Earlier, we used to pay an annual sum as audit fee. Now, we have to pay every quarter and the audit fee has also surged.”

Suresh Krishnan, managing partner, Gramma Technologies, a small unit that is engaged in the manufacture of weighing machines, says the dust has settled.

“Weighing machine is an unorganised industry, but we have managed to swim with the tide,” he said unlike many others in the unorganised sector.

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