Industry body FICCI has called for abolition of anti-profiteering provisions in the GST law to allow market forces to determine prices of goods and service. The plea has been made in a set of pre-Budget recommendations submitted by the federation to the Finance Ministry for implementation in FY22 Budget.
The recommendations come at a time when the National Anti-profiteering Authority (NAA) has become active and is actively awarding penalties to companies for breach of anti-profiteering regulations that prohibit an entity to keep prices of their goods and services higher even if GST rates have fallen. The NAA had charged companies such as Samsung, P&G, McDonalds and others for not bringing down the prices of their products even though GST rates have fallen.
Under the GST law, a National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) and a Standing Committee on anti-profiteering have been set up to examine complaints of not passing on tax rate cut benefits to consumers. GST was rolled out on July 1, 2017. Directorate General of Anti Profiteering (DGAP) investigates profiteering complaints and submits report to NAA, which passes the final order.
