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| Over Rs 2000 crore passenger tax arrears to be written off | | |
Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 3 After its failure to recover passenger tax arrears for the period between 1990 and 1997, the state Government has issued instructions to the concerned department to write off all such arrears. Rough estimates said that the arrears had touched over Rs 2000 crores.
Official sources said that one of the reasons for mounting arrears during 1990-97 was militancy related violence which had prevented both the Government agencies and the transporters from effecting recoveries and making voluntary payment respectively. Sources said that the then National Conference regime had tried its best to realise these arrears till 2002 but there was no success and during the Congress-PDP coalition rule nothing was accomplished.
Sources said a survey conducted by the commercial tax department has revealed that several owners of the registered commercial vehicles had failed to furnish timely information about the sale or scrapping of such vehicles.
The survey further revealed that the registered vehicles do not exist and their owners have not been traced.
The Government had announced an amnesty scheme under which the transporters could pay only 50 per cent of the principal amount of arrears in easy installments. Still there was no response from the tax defaulters.
In reply to a question, Government sources said that the Finance Minister, AR Rather, dropped the idea of forcing the officials of the commercial tax department to initiate measures for recovering passenger tax arrears as it was felt by him that whole exercise is futile which did not allow the official to concentrate on current recoveries.
Accordingly, Rather has directed the Department officials to write off all such arrears from their books after due enquiry. They have been also directed to condone all those who failed to report the sale or scrapping of the vehicles on time.
Official sources said that as a result of this policy, passenger tax realisation had increased by 20 per cent during the last 10 months when compared to the corresponding period last year. Rather has also introduced the VAT Act for the brick kilns which is to generate additional revenue. Emphasis has been laid on improving the mechanism for tax collection.
As a result of better measures the Government expects to generate Rs100 crores under additional resource mobilisation scheme during the current financial year. So far over Rs.75 crores have been realised and instructions have been given to the concerned departments to step up tax collection process so that by the end of the current financial year the Government was able to cross the target of Rs100 crores.
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