Centre to bring textile products under VAT
The Gujarat textile industry may suffer heavy losses if the state fails to shift to Value Added Tax (VAT) regime before April 2006. The Central government has decided to bring textile products under VAT from April 2006.
“The textiles, sugar and petroleum products were exempted from VAT chain when the new tax regime came into force from April 1, 2005. The Central government has announced that textile products would be brought under VAT from the next financial year,” said Arun Jariwala, chairman, The Surat Art Silk Cloth Manufacturers Association.
“This would be a very tricky situation for the textile industry. If Gujarat does not implement the VAT from April 2006, the traders of other states would not get set-off against the tax paid by them on the textiles purchased from Gujarat On account of this, for the traders of other states, costing of textiles purchased from Gujarat would be higher than that of textiles purchased from the VAT states,” he said.
“The traders of other states would not find buying textiles from Gujarat beneficial, and would turn to other states. This would naturally lead to a decline in demand for textiles from Gujarat. The industry would have to suffer heavy losses because of this. To avoid such a situation, it is extremely important that the state government shifts to VAT regime from the next financial year,” Jariwala added.A leading textile businessman asked the state government to shift to VAT at the earliest.
More: business-standard.com
4/18/2005
Traders want changes in VAT bill
Traders want changes in VAT bill
The Gujarat Vyapari Hithrakshak Samiti (state traders body) has stated that the association will intensify its agitation to effect changes in the existing Gujarat Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2005.
Indications are that the state might implement the Value Added Tax (VAT) system from July.
Climbing down from the earlier stance that VAT should not be implemented at all, Vyapari Samiti vice-president Jayendra Tanna said on Sunday, that while VAT is bound to come into force some day in state, the trading community cannot accept VAT in its present form.
“The penalty clauses are too stringent and Samiti has sent several letters to the state government, seeking a meeting. But none of our requests have been met so far,” Tanna said.
Although state finance minister Vajubhai Vala did not attend the high powered committee on VAT of state finance ministers held on Saturday, the finance department has already initiated computerisation to meet the VAT requirements.
In fact, the department has already asked officials concerned to be ready for implementation of VAT from July.
Manufacturing community had put pressure on the government to implement VAT. Many states, including neighbouring Maharashtra, have already implemented VAT.
Commenting on the price rise of goods by around 15 per cent in states where VAT has been implemented, Tana said that apart from the additional burden inflicted on consumers, there is also confusion about VAT.
“In a state such as Gujarat, if the government does not talk with traders’ organisations and sort out pending issues, people will face difficulties here,” he said.
More: ebusiness-standard.com