Alleging that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has crippled medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday claimed that if elected to power in the next Lok Sabha elections, the Congress will reconceptualise GST.
The Congress will usher in a 'one tax, minimum tax’ policy, Rahul said on Saturday while interacting with industry representatives in Coimbatore.
The Congress leader, who is currently campaigning for the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, said there is a need to promote MSMEs so that India can compete with countries like China and Bangladesh adding that India’s future will be determined by MSMEs.
Small and medium industries are the backbone of the country in terms of job creation, he said and blamed the BJP for creating a “huge disharmony” in the country. "You cannot have disharmony and have economic growth," Rahul Gandhi said and alleged India is unable to provide jobs to its youngsters and claimed the economy has been devastated.
Answering a question on GST, he hit out at the Modi-led government for bypassing a bulk of negotiations that took place during the UPA rule for a simple, minimum tax.
Eventually, the BJP government “superimposed” its own model deviating from the originally conceptualised framework and as a result, people are paying “five” (in reference to slabs) massive amount of taxes, he alleged.
He assured that the Congress will restructure the GST to pave the way for 'one tax, minimum tax," if his party is voted to power at the Centre. "This GST regime will simply not work. It will impose huge load on MSMEs and cripple our economic system. The biggest supporters of GST were large businesses. There is a reason for it..GST.. as it is currently designed to help them and not MSMEs," Rahul Gandhi said.
MSMEs should be truly empowered and they should have access to credit, he said adding the government cannot tie the hands of industries with 'GST and demonetisation' and ask them to compete with China.
"Without unclogging the banking system, without giving the MSMEs protection and incentives for job creation, the Indian economic system will not move forward," he said.
(With PTI inputs)
