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Context
- The GST’s anti-profiteering body must not become a tool of harassment
About the National Anti-Profiteering Authority
- The National Anti-Profiteering Authority is empowered to crack down on firms that fail to pass on the ‘benefits’ of the tax regime to consumers.
- The authority can order businesses to reduce product prices or refund to consumers ‘undue benefits’; in extreme cases it can impose a penalty on errant firms and cancel their registration as taxpayers.
Why is it important?
- The trigger for setting up the authority is clearly the recent large-scale reduction in tax rates on more than 300 items, of which about 200 rate changes were to come recently
- The government is keen on ensuring that consumers have a better perception of the GST’s ground-level impact.
- While wholesalers can still implement this, reaching every last retailer is a challenge.
- Firms have been warned that the entire retail chain must reflect revised prices in order to avoid anti-profiteering action
What is the way ahead?
- The government must ensure that the authority’s powers are used transparently and only where there is genuine consumer/public interest at stake. Else, it runs the risk of making profit itself a bad word.
