E-commerce companies including bigger players such as Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal have stopped delivering products to Kerala, due to issues with the state's sales tax department, reports Asianet. If you search the pincode of any address in Kerala, it says "delivery is not available to this pincode for the current item". eBay sports no such warning, but from what we understand some deliveries have been stuck in transit. According to the report, the state tax office feels that these e-commerce companies are able to discount their products by around 5% because they don't pay taxes in the state. In that context, it is worth noting that Amit Agarwal, Vice President and Country Manager, Amazon India had touched upon these issues of taxation in India while talking to Medianama last year. He had said that merchants will like the 'fulfilled by Amazon' service as it hides these complexities. However, now that they have stopped delivering to Kerala based on these very same issues, merchants are back to square one again. Update: Turns out, some orders made for products that were supposed to be fulfilled by Amazon are being sent through Gati. These orders have also been delayed and adding to the confusion, the tracking information for these products are different on Gati and Amazon. Retailers want GST: As of now retailers need to pay Central Service Tax (CST), Value added tax and also separate tax in the state the item is sold in, for each product. Each of these taxes need to be paid…
