The Confederation of All India Traders wants the trading community to be consulted before a roadmap for the implementation of the value-added tax is formulated.

The empowered committee on VAT which met on Monday had said that the new tax regime would be implemented if their was a  consensus on the issue among the major political parties.

CAIT secretary General Praveen Khandelwal has urged the government to constitute a joint committee of traders and officials to look into the provisions of the existing sales tax laws and the proposed VAT and to evolve a law which will protect the interests of the traders as well as consumers and also boost revenue.

Khandelwal said that trade delegations would soon meet leaders of major political parties in order to apprise them of the objections and view point of the trading community on VAT.