VAT refunds to be paid online within 15 days- Sukhbir Badal

Chandigarh, November 6, 2013: Sukhbir Singh Badal Deputy Chief Minister today announced that VAT refunds would be paid online to industrialists henceforth on the basis of a star rating system.

Disclosing this following a meeting with senior BJP ministers including Madan Mohan Mittal and Bhagat Chunni Lal, Adviser Tikshan Sud and trader board former Chairman Narottam Ratti yesterday evening, the Deputy CM said the refunds would be paid online into the accounts of the traders/industrialists on the basis of their self assessments from the corpus created by collecting Advance Tax.

Badal said the funds in the newly evolved corpus would be first used to clear the VAT refunds. At the end of the month, if any funds were left in this Corpus, they would be transferred to the Consolidated Fund of the state. Monthly collections expected to be Rs. 200 crores and these collections would be used exclusively to clear the monthly refunds of around Rs. 100 Crores.

Giving details of the VAT Refund Policy, the Deputy Chief Minister said the highest tax payer would be adjudged as “five star payee” and refunds would be paid within 15 days. Similarly, the VAT refund to 4, 3 and 2 star rated traders would be paid online within 25, 35 and 45 days respectively. “The criteria for such ratings would be determined on various parameters including the standing of the company, imports, exports, general turnover, past records and self assessment case file”, he said.

Elaborating further, the Deputy Chief Minister said that the Excise and Taxation department would ascertain their self assessments randomly submitted to the department to verify the laid down parameters. He also said that whenever a star dealer applies for the refund, the concerned AETC would take up his case on priority and on the basis of preliminary scrutiny refund would be transferred within a fixed time. “Within 45 days of issue of refund, the AETC would complete thorough scrutiny of all refund applications and in case of any deliberate or fraudulently wrong claim of refund, the department would impose appropriate penalty prescribed in the policy”, added Badal. The Deputy Chief Minister also announced that 200 traders would be awarded for paying the highest amount of taxes in various categories at the time of unveiling the Traders’ Policy on November 14.

Welcoming the innovative move of the Deputy Chief Minister to give relief to the traders, Madan Mohan Mittal, Industries Minister Punjab said that various measures taken by the SAD-BJP government would not only give big relief to the traders but would also make the entire VAT procedure hassle free. He also said that this would also encourage the traders/industrialists to expand their business. Adding further Mittal said that as per the statistics, refunds to the tune of Rs.70 crore have been disbursed online in the month of October, 2013.