CHENNAI: AA little less than a month after the roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a shoddy Photoshop work on Facebook wants you to believe that there are 2,600 GST patrol vehicles on the prowl in all the States of the country to make sure you abide by the rules of GST.
Traders, already struggling to come to terms with the Centre’s new tax structure, found one more reason to worry on Facebook as two photos — one of a Toyota Innova, carrying the words ‘GST Highway Patrol’ and another of a line-up of patrol cars, apparently ready for GST patrol duty, did the rounds. The post also says that 2,600 of these cars are dispatched by each State for the job and that the patrolling begins from July 24.
A week after the patrol was set to begin, it seems to have become clear that no such patrol has begun and with no announcements to indicate anything of the sort on the cards. This aside, the photo itself is a give-away. While the first photo of the single patrol car has the word ‘GST’ photoshopped on it, the person(s) behind the hoax did not go through the trouble of photoshopping the other cars in the second picture.
Secondly, it makes one wonder what is a ‘GST Highway Patrol’ car? A highway patrol car that looks for GST lapses in shops along the Highway?