Tamil Nadu - Foodgrain merchants' body for GST introduction from 2011-12     

The Tamilnadu Foodgrains Merchants Association has called for the introduction of Goods and Sales Tax (GST) from the financial year 2011-12 instead of April 2010.

The draft Bill of GST has been introduced only recently, the association said in a pre-budget memorandum submitted to the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukerjee, by the association President, Mr S.P. Jeyaprakasam, accompanied by the executive committee members, Mr P.Subash Chandra Bose and C.Deivarajan and Member of Parliament, Mr N.S.V.Chithan at New Delhi, recently. The association has demanded that all foodgrains must be exempted from tax, withdraw the levy of service tax on traders in respect lorry freight and consider issuing high denomination currency notes to facilitate easy transaction and safety, lest the credit card value be enhanced.

With reference to Direct Tax Code, the association while welcoming the single code for direct taxes and the concept of financial year, has pleaded for the code being in regional language-read Tamil- to promote understanding by the tax payers.