The All India Tax Advocates Forum (AITAF) today asked
the Delhi government not to propose any hike in VAT
during the budget for next fiscal in view of the rising
inflation and instead focus on realising tax dues
amounting to over Rs 3,000 crore. "Delhi is in need of
resource mobilisation to fund its manifold developmental
activities. But, it will not be advisable to raise
resources through further hike in VAT (value-added tax)
rates in view of rising inflation, which is hitting the
common man very hard," AITAF President M K Gandhi said
in a statement. He said as the exercise for preparation
of the Budget 2012-13 for the Delhi government gathers
momentum, all efforts must be made to recover tax dues
locked up in thousands of tax disputes cases rather than
raising VAT. Before VAT came into force in 2005, sales
tax demand of nearly Rs 650 crore was locked up in as
many as 3,249 cases, which are at various stages of
appeals. Similarly, an amount of nearly Rs 2,400 crore
is stuck due to nearly 14,800 objection cases pending
before VAT authorities for disposal, the statement said.
"The Delhi government targeted to raise revenues of over
Rs 12,500 crore through VAT in 2011-12. Thus nearly 25
per cent of VAT revenues have been locked up due to
pendency of disposal of appeal and objection cases.
"Therefore, the government should focus on expeditious
disposal of these pending VAT-related cases," Gandhi,
who is also a leading tax consultant, said.The pricing
of petroleum products in India has several anomalies
that warrant urgent reforms to address the unintended
adverse effects on persistently high inflation, high
energy costs for the industry, as well as improve the
health of the petroleum sector. The key problems are the
‘ad valorem' basis for various taxes levied by central
and state governments, the high incidence of overall
taxes on petroleum products and high government
interference in day-to-day pricing, thereby eroding the
health of the oil companies.
