(MENAFN- IANS) Bengaluru, Sep 4 (IANS) Karnataka Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR), IT and BT, Priyank Kharge, taking objection to the revamp of the eight-year-old indirect tax regime by the Centre, stated on Thursday that "two thirds of the total Goods and Services Tax i.e. 64 per cent comes from the pockets of the poor and the middle class, but only 3 per cent GST is collected from billionaires, while the rate of Corporate Tax has been reduced from 30 per cent to 22 per cent."

Priyank Kharge further stated that, "Now that, the government has finally adhered to our demands of rationalising and simplifying the GST, they are yet to figure out how they will compensate the losses to states like Karnataka."

Minister Kharge took to social media platform X to state, "A bit of common sense seems to have dawned upon the Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sarkar on the 'Gabbar Singh Tax'. For almost a decade, the Indian National Congress has been demanding simplification of GST. 'One Nation, One Tax' had become 'One Nation, 9 Taxes' - 0 per cent, 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent, 28 per cent, and special rates of 0.25 per cent, 1.5 per cent, 3 per cent and 6 per cent."

"The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge had been consistently batting for 18 per cent cap or lower GST rates. The Congress party in its 2019 and 2024 manifestos had demanded a GST 2.0 with simplified and rational tax regime. We had also demanded to simplify the complicated compliances which had severely hit the MSMEs and small businesses," Kharge said.

For the first time, farmers were taxed under the BJP, with GST rates on at least 36 goods/items in the farm sector ranging from 12 per cent to 28 per cent, he stated.

Essential commodities like packaged milk, wheat flour, curd, books, stationery etc were brought in under the GST, Kharge pointed out.

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