• Notification Date: 21-11-2022
• Notification No: N/A

Govt of India to Abolish National Anti-Profiteering Authority

The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) acts as the anti-profiteering watchdog of GST. At present it is all about to be subsumed into the Competition Commission of India (CCI). 

As per the Government instruction, NAA’s investigation arm will continue to be a part of the CCI. It usually handles the cases independently, as a result, this move by the Government will reduce the multiplicity of regulators. As soon as the terms of the NAA come to an end, the cases will be transferred to the CCI. 

The key function of NAA is to make sure that the benefit of tax rate reduction reaches the consumer immediately. Since, the GST Council has been rejigging the rates of the items and services in the last five years, the responsibility was handed over to the NAA. But it has no control over the rising rates.  

The GST authorities have been receiving several complaints about the early years of GST. These complaints state that the benefit of the input tax credit has not been fully passed on to consumers. NAA has scrutinised several sectors like eateries, cinemas, real estate, fast-moving consumer goods, etc. In most of the complaints received by the NAA, the regulator ordered the business to return the allegedly overcharged amounts to the consumer.  

The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) was established in 2017 under Section 171 of the Goods and Services Tax Act. The primary function of the NAA was to monitor and to oversee whether the reduction or benefit of input tax credit is reaching the recipient properly in accordance with the reduction in the rates of the goods and services. It was constituted by the Central Government to analyse whether the input tax credits availed by any registered person or the reduction in the tax is genuinely passed onto the consumer. NAA used to monitor whether the consumer is protected from random price increase for self-interests in the name of GST.