FOPSIA writes to CM on E&T issues

Ludhiana, September 2, 2012: In a letter addressed to Punjab Chief Minister, Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association (FOPSIA) president Badish K. Jindal has raised some important issues relating to Excise and Taxation Department.

“After the strong protests by FOPSIA, the Ludhiana Excise and Taxation Department came out with the list of cancellation dealers and the figures are shocking the total number of cancellation of registration number during last year is 1,482, in this list 299 numbers are cancelled from district I, 528 in district II  and 665 in district III of Ludhiana”, he revealed.

Adding, he said most of the numbers belongs to the companies those have close down their business in Ludhiana and a few numbers are of the units those are in Bogus Bill Net and department cancelled their numbers.

The communication further reads; “This data is indeed shocking as the close down of 1,482 enterprises in one year gives the signals of the economy of Punjab”.

Further, Jindal apprised the chief minister that, the more shocking figures are that even after the provision of self assessment and online return filing the VAT department during 2012-13 issued online scrutiny notices to 20,904 assesses for their assessment of 2008-09 cases in Punjab, which comes around 15% of the total assesses but beside this thousands of notices are issued other than the published list on the flimsy grounds just for the vested interests of the officers,

The fact remains that for each and every VAT refund assess are forced to pass through the scrutiny even after their routine scrutiny.

In this tally too Ludhiana –I, leads with 1942 official online scrutiny notices and the number of unofficial notices is almost the same.

On one side the department is requesting the dealers to come under VAT process and at the same time just in Ludhiana more than 1,000 dealers are waiting for their registration numbers. The time limit to issue RC’s under PIFA act to these dealers had already been crossed but the department is making excuses of staff crunch and the same staff crunch reason is also the main cause for delay in VAT refunds.

Under such circumstances where the total number of Excise and Taxation officials in Punjab is merely around 100, the assessment of around 21,000 official scrutiny cases and the same number of unofficial cases in a year is nearly impossible.  

Also, the communication reads: “FOPSIA strongly demands that when it was committed by the Government that under VAT there will be self assessment, beside this there is a provision of online filing for everyone and the department can easily cross verify the sale and purchase of all the assesses, then to call the assesses on the reason of scrutiny is merely a cause of spreading corruption and it requires be stopped immediately.”