GST: Goods with old MRP to be confiscated from October 1

Dated New Delhi, September 25, 2017

Packaged consumer goods displaying the old maximum retail price (MRP) will be confiscated from October 1 under the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, reported Zee News. After the roll-out of the GST, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan had extended a three-month dispensation to all manufacturers and traders till September 30 on old stock they were holding. From October 1, products with pre-GST prices will be confiscated.

The government had earlier allowed companies to print, stamp, or use stickers to show the new MRP on a product package. The guidelines were issued to ensure that companies and retailers have a way of dealing with older (so-called pre-GST) stock, and preventing profiteering in the name of new MRP. The original MRP shall continue to be displayed and the revised or post-GST price shall not overwrite on it, said the guidelines.

There has been ample confusion among both consumers and retailers regarding how the MRP changes will reflect under GST. “Under the GST regime, if a price of a product has increased the manufacturer/ importer/ packer will have to give an advertisement in two newspapers about the new MRP and put a revised sticker on the packaging,” the government had said in July.

GST, launched at midnight of June 30, has subsumed all value added tax (VAT) and Octroi levied on goods and services. It has four slabs — 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent — for different commodities. This is considered India’s most ambitious tax reforms since independence in 1947.

Source: www.indiasamvad.co.in