Traders oppose proposed amendment in Section 13(1) of Punjab VAT Act, 2005

Ludhiana, June 27, 2014: Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal (PPBM) has strongly opposed a move of the Department of Excise and Taxation to amend Section 13(1) of the Punjab Value Added Tax Act, 2005 with effect from April 1, 2014.
In a statement here today, the Mandal’s state president Amrit Lal Jain, general secretary Sunil Mehra and secretary Mohinder Aggarwal, added the department proposed to accept the data regarding stock/ITC tax slab wise instead of item wise from the dealers.
They told that the Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Punjab on June 11, 2014 issued a public notice, claiming that “in consequences of the amendment in section 13(1) of the Punjab Value Added Tax Act, 2005 w.e.f. 01.04.2014, the department has received a number of representations from the various stake holders requesting for clarification on the method of computation of Input Tax Credit available for utilization to set off the output tax liability during a particular period. The matter has been considered and for the convenience of the dealers it is proposed that they will not be asked to give the data of stock/ITC item wise. Rather, Department proposes to accept the data regarding stock/ITC tax slab wise which will be much easier for the dealer to provide.”
The traders’ leaders said the proposed amendment was like “new wine in an old bottle”. They added they had even opposed the previous amendment, urging for withdrawal of the same with immediate effect. They said they stood by their stand even now. They said “it looks department is hardly bothered about our concerns and its entire emphasis is to come out every day with new rules, regulation and notification, which lack vision and clarity. Traders have simply become clerks and left with no time to think about expansion and progress. It is not possible that whole of the budget of the state should be fulfilled from just about 2.38 lakh VAT registered dealers of the state”.