Will simplify GST structure after coming to power: Rahul

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said that the structure of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) would undergo changes if his party came back to power at the Centre in 2019.

Addressing a programme at St. Edmund's College, Rahul said, "If we come back to power in the Centre, we are going change the structure of GST and simplify it".

"We had proposed a different GST structure. The products that common people use should be out of the tax bracket and there should be only one layer of tax. But, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) told us to mind our own business and said that we were going ahead with our own version of GST", he added.

Rahul launched an attack at the BJP, saying that the complicated structure of GST was harming the common people across the country.

"The BJP launched the GST at midnight. It was pushed out hastily. Five different tax layers is a complicated structure. The GST has been launched without testing, causing severe pain to the common people. Millions of people are losing their jobs every day," Rahul said.

The Congress President criticised the BJP's attitude of ignoring small and medium businesses and were supporting only businessmen in the country.

"The BJP's focus on 10-15 business people is totally wrong. Big businesses get a lot of support. But, when we compare it with small and medium businesses, there is no sense. Small and medium businesses do not get that support. The big businesses are only getting benefitted from the political system", Rahul added.

"We believe the support and organising of small and medium businesses. They need that financial support from the banking system", he continued.

The Congress President is in Shillong to kick off the election campaign of the party in poll-bound Meghalaya.

The polling for the 60-member state assembly will take place on February 27 along with Nagaland. The results will be declared on March 3.