Grahakjago (S.K.Virmani)©

GST has been introduced in the country with much fanfare issuing several political statements. One of the statement being heard from the politicians of the ruling party was that all consumers are excited with the implementation of GST. Even the Prime Minister termed it as Good and Sweet Tax. GST is on a basic principle of One Nation One Tax and it has got two elements i.e CGST (Central GST) and SGST (State GST). Prior to introduction of GST, we have VAT system in country. In my view, there is no basic difference as both are with cascading effect at each point of sale i.e the additional tax on value addition and in both the tax systems, the input tax gets credited to the registered dealer by adjusting with output tax. It simply means if the registered dealer has paid an input tax of Rs. 100/- on a commodity and he sells the commodity to next buyer by charging tax at Rs. 105/-, the dealer has to pay the additional tax of Rs. 5/- only. Such facility was available in both terminology...

Number of articles have been written on this blog pertaining to charging of service charges by the restaurants. An article titled Are Restaurant and Hotels adapting to unfair business practices? also appeared in this blog on 21/04/2015 the url of which is http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.in/2015/04/are-restaurant-and-hotels-adapting-to.html The service charge being charged in the bill by the restaurants and hotels are in one form is like 'Tip". The tip is always considers to be out of its own will whereas the restaurants and hotels are charging compulsorily in the bills and this range from 10% to anywhere around 20% irrespective of whether the service is worth appreciation. While the Gov. of India through Department of Consumer Affairs have issued guidelines for fair business practices, the restaurants are still violating the same guidelines. The guidelines as issued by Department of Consumer Affairs are reproduced below: "

National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has come out with a Fastag to enable motorist to cross the toll plaza barriers without stopping at any of the toll plaza. The toll fee as applicable to the particular toll plaza gets automatically deducted from the prepaid balance in the card. Three Banks have been nominated for such fastag cards namely IDFC Bank, State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank. The main terms of the financial cost in the Tags have been specified by NHAI for the car as: 1. Cost of the Tag           : Rs. 200/- 2. Security Deposit         : Rs. 200/- 3. Minimum balance       : Rs. 100/- The term Minimum Balance has been specified as "Minimum Balance is the minimum recharge amount to be done at the time of RFID tag activation" The plain reading of these costs indicates that the Tag would be costing you Rs. 500/- which will be having Rs. 100/- as minimum balance and the tag would be an active one...

Unfair trade practices by retailers (Shopperstop, Myntra, Jabong, Lifestyle, Anita Dongre, Big Bazar Gen Nxt) and others - Charging VAT/ GST on discounted sales There have been several posts in this blog bringing out details of unfair business being carried out by the retailers. T he first of such an article titled Is Ritu Wears adapting to ethical business Practices? probably "No". was published on 09/02/2014 followed by another article titled  Why VAT being charged by Aditya Birla Nuvo on discounted MRP when MRP is inclusive of all taxes? which was published on 10/02/2014. The link to these two articles are: http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.in/2014/02/is-ritu-wears-adapting-to-ethical.html http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.in/2014/02/why-vat-being-charged-by-aditya-birla Thereafter I have been working on a drive bringing out such unethical business practices by the retailers using other social media too. The articles were being shared with the stakeholders a...