Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Sunday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “immediate intervention” to streamline e-commerce guidelines and policies to “save the domestic trade from the clutches of malpractices of big e-commerce companies.” In a letter addressed to PM Modi, the federation alleged an unholy nexus among banks and e-commerce providers to violate the laws. It also accused marketplaces in the e-commerce sector, which is dominated by Amazon and Flipkart, for “openly violating the FDI policy, law and Rules without any fear of law by indulging into predatory pricing, deep discounting, loss funding, controlling inventory, sale of branded products exclusively on their respective portals which are specifically restricted Press Note 2 of FDI policy of the Government.”
Press Note 2 issued by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in December 2018 had noted that e-commerce marketplaces “will not mandate any seller to sell any product exclusively on its platform only.” CAIT stated that e-commerce providers have discovered several escape routes in Press Note No.2 of the FDI Policy and therefore, requested PM Modi for “a fresh Press note blocking all escape routes and abolishing all such provisions that may prompt these companies to violate the rules or policies.” It also urged for obtaining a regulatory authority to regulate and monitor the e-commerce business enterprise along with an e-commerce policy prescribing defined parameters for e-commerce business enterprise for structured development of e-commerce vertical in the nation.
The DPIIT had in December final year asked the Reserve Bank of India and Enforcement Directorate to take vital action following CAIT’s allegations with respect to FDI and FEMA violations by Amazon and Flipkart. However, “no such investigation has been initiated by RBI or ED on the matter,” MoS Commerce and Industry Som Parkash had stated in a written reply to a query in the Rajya Sabha final week.
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CAIT also urged PM Modi for ease in GST complexities. The federation, which represents 8.5 crore traders, stated that more than 950 amendments produced by the GST Council in the previous 4 years have produced “GST as a more complicated tax system and the traders are subject to about 60 types of compliances.” The letter study that the principle of organic justice has been drastically violated by way of such amendments exactly where the traders have been denied any sort of show bring about notice or chance of hearing ahead of taking any penal action.
CAIT recommended the formation of a ‘special working group’ at the Central level consisting of senior officials and representatives of CAIT and independent tax authorities to overview the GST Tax structure and make suggestions to the government for generating it a ‘Good & Simple Tax’. It also requested for a ‘District GST working Group’ of senior tax officials and representatives of CAIT in every single district to monitor smooth GST implementation and taking actions for the widening of tax base and income augmentation in respective districts.