Is It Fair
Introduction :
The Maharashtra State Tax on Professions, Trades, Callings &
Employments Act, 1975 requires every person carrying on a business or profession
to obtain an enrolment certificate and pay profession tax annually as per the
provisions of the said Act.
The said Act also requires every employer, paying more than
Rs.2500 p.m. as salary or wages to get himself registered under the act and pay
tax on salaries and wages paid by him to his employees. The profession tax can
be recovered from the salaries and wages of the employees.
The implementation of this Act has been very slow and even
today a large number of persons and employers have not been brought under the
tax net. Also in case of registered and enrolled persons, the recovery and
assessment of tax has not been followed up effectively by the Sales Tax
Department of Maharashtra.
Amnesty Scheme, 2007 :
In order to bring such un-enrolled and un-registered persons
under the tax net and offer an opportunity to such persons and also to recover a
large amount of outstanding profession tax, the Government of Maharashtra had
introduced an ‘Amnesty Scheme’ during the period September-October 2007. (The
scheme was further extended up to 31st October 2007). As per the scheme, the
un-enrolled and un-registered as well as registered and enrolled persons were
required to pay outstanding tax for previous five years along with interest and
penalty of 10% of the actual interest/penalty payable as per the provisions of
the Act.
People’s response :
In response to the scheme, a large number of persons and
employers had submitted their applications for enrolment and registration and
paid tax, interest and penalty as per the scheme. Even after the expiry of the
Amnesty Scheme, a huge number of applications for enrolment and registration are
received by sales tax department every day. Initially, the sales tax department
was issuing the enrolment/registration certificate to the applicant and
thereupon the person was required to pay tax along with applications for
availing Amnesty Scheme benefits. With the number of applications increasing,
the deparment issued verbal instructions to pay the tax based on the application
serial no. for which number of taxpayers had to struggle with banks for
acceptance of payments.
Sales Tax Department’s action :
Today after nearly 5 months of the last date of the Amnesty
Scheme, many of the applicants have not received their enrolment/registration
certificates.
The enrolled persons are required to deposit the profession
tax due by them for the financial year before 30th June every year. With this,
the tax for the year 2008-09 is due on 30th June 2008. The applicants, who are
yet to receive any communication from the sales tax departments, are clueless
about discharge of liability without the identification number which the
revenue-collecting banks insist on every challan for payment of tax.
Further, the un-registered persons are required to file
monthly, quarterly or annual returns based on their total liability during the
previous financial year. In the aforementioned situation, the registered
employers are not able to meet the statutory obligation of payment of tax and
filing of returns for want of registration no. for which they have been waiting
for last 5-6 months.
As regards the procedure for issuance of enrolment and
registration certificate, the applicants are required to submit necessary
documentary evidences with application and no further inquiry or scrutiny is
carried out by the sales tax authorities before issuing the certificates to the
applicants.
The people’s concern :
In view of this, the questions which arise are :
1. Is it fair on the part of the Sales Tax Department to
delay the issue of certificate to the applicants
2. Will the applicant be liable to pay interest and penalty
for delay in payment of tax or filing of return ?
Suggestions :
Registration certificates should be issued either on the
spot, or at least the numbers be made available ‘on-line’, so that the taxpayers
can download their respective certificates.
