Hyderabad: Corporates, industries and some Central government undertakings have failed to pay commercial taxes worth Rs 9,000 crore in the state. There are contrasting claims between government and corporates over these arrears.
While the commercial taxes department terms it tax evasion and is taking steps to invoke the Revenue Recovery Act. Industries claim these are the outcome of disputes over faulty assessment and are in court. With the GST set to come into force in six months, the government is coming out with a scheme where half the arrears can be paid and disputes settled.
Special drive to recover arrears
The government is likely to impose certain conditions for companies to avail of the scheme. “First, they need to withdraw all cases from various forums and come forward to settle the dispute with the government. The government is willing to exempt up to 50 per cent of the arrears if they are ready for settlement. These provisions are being worked out and the government will announce the amnesty scheme shortly,” said an official of the Commercial Taxes department.
Since all commercial taxes will be replaced by GST from April 2017, the state government is keen on an early settlement of tax disputes so that it can implement the new tax regime smoothly without any long-pending arrears.
Big corporates and industries such as Ballarpur Industries Ltd, Automotive Manufacturers Pvt Ltd, Cadbury India Ltd, Voltas Ltd, Siemens Ltd, Colgate Palmolive India Ltd, Bajaj Electronics Ltd, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd, Castrol India Ltd, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, The Paper Products Ltd, Shakti Hormann Ltd, Kakatiya Cement Sugar & Industries Ltd, Eastern Condiments Pvt Ltd, Prism Cement Ltd etc. figure on the list.
Even Central government owned companies like BPCL, HPCL, IOC, and also the South Central Railway are in the list of organisations owing arrears amounting to hundreds of crores of rupees each.
These big companies together owe nearly 50 per cent of the total '9,000 crore arrears while the remaining is owed by medium and small industries, commercial establishments and other business entities.
“We also decided to conduct a special drive in September to recover tax arrears where there are no legal disputes. Circle-wise data has been gathered on tax evasion and targets have been fixed for each circle on tax collection,” the official said.
