The city-based Agro Food Chamber of Commerce and Industry objected to treating wheat as an ‘agricultural produce’ whereas rice as a ‘manufactured produce’ for taxation and urged Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to exempt food items of daily use from taxation.

The trade body condemned the taxation of food items of daily consumption such as rice, wheat, pulses, dhall, flour, maida, atta and rava (sooji) under GST.It cited that GST is not levied on the basis of food products but on the basis of irrelevant matters such as whether the products have a registered brand name and they are packed or packed in the presence of the consumer.

Taxing products as per the provisions of a different enactment causes utter confusion and increases the compliance cost of the assesses. “We request finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to accept this popular demand at this most appropriate time when our average monthly GST collection exceeds 1.7 lakh crore,” said the chamber’s president S Rethinavelu.

Source: The Times of India