BENGALURU: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s affiliate, Swadeshi Jagran Manch , has identified Chinese sellers on Amazon’s India e-commerce platform who are not paying taxes that Indian sellers do.
SJM national co-convener Ashwani Mahajan said the sellers are evading taxes using the international gift route. Currently, four gifts under Rs 5,000 each per year per person are exempted from import duties. Some Chinese sellers are said to be marking every sale as a gift. Mahajan said the organisation is taking up the matter with the Centre.
The All-India Online Vendors’ Association is working with the SJM on the matter.
TOI has seen an invoice of one of these sellers where there is no mention of taxes.
Amazon India has a global store for Indian users where products from its US site are sold. Typically, all import taxes are included in the final pricing of these products. The Chinese sellers are not part of this global store, but are independently listed sellers on the Indian marketplace.
Association may ask govt to scrap gift policy in meet
Sources in Amazon said while the company has a strong compliance mechanism to ensure adherence to local laws, certain sellers find loopholes to derive unfair advantages.
An Amazon India spokesperson said, “Amazon will always be compliant with local laws, have robust processes to ensure this and zero tolerance for any noncompliant seller”.
A meeting is expected to take place this week between SJM’s Mahajan, trade associations and commerce minister Suresh Prabhu.
The associations are expected to ask the government to scrap the gift policy. Mahajan told TOI this is causing damage to domestic sellers. “It sends a signal that the government is fine with losing import duty on these goods. We’ll recommend its abolition,” a person aware of the plans said.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com