Govt monitors e-commerce platforms to ensure GST rate cut benefits reach consumers

The government is monitoring e-commerce platforms to ensure GST rate cuts on daily essentials are passed to consumers. Authorities are tracking pricing of 54 items, including FMCG products and electronics, amid complaints of inadequate price reductions

New Delhi: The government has placed e-commerce platforms under scrutiny as it monitors prices of daily use FMCG products ranging from shampoo to pulses to ensure that the benefits of Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate cuts are being appropriately passed on to consumers, a source said on Tuesday.

Authorities are monitoring whether these platforms are complying with pricing norms and not withholding the intended consumer benefits from tax reductions. Amid complaints of not commensurate price reduction of daily essential items being sold on some e-commerce platforms, sources said that the government has informally ticked off certain e-commerce operators for the prices they are offering on certain items.

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“The government is monitoring e-commerce operators for a smooth and genuine passage of GST cuts. The revenue department is monitoring whether taxes have been cut commensurately,” the source said.

Sources said the e-commerce platforms cited ‘technical glitches’ when discrepancies in pricing pre- and post-GST reduction were pointed out. “Government is keeping a strict vigil,” the source added.

Effective September 22, Goods and Services Tax (GST) has become a two-tier structure of 5 per cent and 18 per cent. The earlier rates of 5, 12, 18, and 28 per cent have been clubbed into two rates of 5 per cent and 18 per cent, resulting in a reduced price of 99 per cent of daily use items.

Although the anti-profiteering mechanism has not been enabled for complaints relating to profiteering, the government has been monitoring pricing, and various companies have themselves come forward and said that they are passing on tax cut benefits by reducing prices.

On September 9, the finance ministry had written to Central GST field officers to submit a monthly report of price changes in 54 commonly used items. The first report on the comparative details of the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of these commodities, brand-wise, will have to be submitted to the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) by Tuesday.

The list of 54 items includes butter, shampoo, toothpaste, tomato ketchup, jams, ice cream, AC, TV, all diagnostic kits, Glucometer, bandages, thermometer, erasers, crayons, and cement, among others.