Union Budget 2019 - Expectation - Mr. Karthik Ramaiah, Co-founder, Kobster

Budget expectation from Mr. Karthik Ramaiah, Co-founder, Kobster. Kobster, pioneer of e-procurement in B2B e-commerce industry in India. It was incubated & graduated from PayPal in May 2015.

With the Lok Sabha elections round the corner, proposals put forth in the upcoming Union Budget (interim) will play a major role in determining vote decisions, both from the individual and industry perspectives.

As far as the Indian e-commerce sector is concerned, anyone would agree that it has now blossomed from infancy to maturity. Given this scenario, there is hope and expectation that some of the tax and regulatory issues adversely affecting the sector will be eased through a robust and futuristic tax policy. Good policies and fiscal support (especially around GST) would definitely act as a catalyst for the success of the e-commerce sector.

The GST Council's recent decision to raise the basic threshold limit for suppliers of goods for mandatory GST registration to INR 40 lakhs from the current INR 20 lakhs is a welcome move. This will benefit small businesses as it will reduce their compliance cost and efforts. In a small way, it is also a step towards inclusion of these small vendors into the procurement chain by helping keep their cash flows steady.

The sector eagerly awaits the much-needed impetus to digitisation and incentivising of digital transactions. In addition to this, the SME and MSME sectors have to be given a big boost by the Hon'ble Finance Minister…this would be the key to job creations and further driving the growth of the Indian economy.

We are optimistic about a unified approach that could be implemented by the centre in concurrence with states and local bodies to ensure that a comprehensive tax and regulatory policy is uniformly understood and implemented for facilitating the growth of the e-commerce sector in India. The need of the hour is a holistic policy with a regulatory body that oversees the implementation of a favourable environment for the e-commerce sector to thrive and flourish.

Source : Equity Bulls

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