HP earns Rs 680 crore after VAT, says CM

Shimla, Mar 16 (UNI) The Himachal Pradesh government had earned a revenue of Rs 680 crore this fiscal after Value Added Tax (VAT) was implemented in the state, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said today.

The revenue earned this fiscal was 33 per cent more than last year, he said, while presiding over the first meeting of the HP Traders Welfare Board here.

Mr Singh said the government had exempted a number of handicrafts, food grains, agriculture and horticulture produce, CSD items from VAT, while reducing it from 12.5 per cent to four per cent on food stuffs served in the hotels and restaurants tax.

The Empowered Committee of the state Finance Ministers had been directed to remove the disparities in implementation of the tax system by March, 2006 to have uniform tax pattern, he said.

He said his government had planned to make the VAT system simpler and introduced one time tax payment system for small traders having annual turnover of up to Rs 25 lakh and save them from the exercise of filing tax returns.

Traders having an annual turnover of Rs. eight lakh were required to pay a lump sum tax of Rs 3,000 meaning thereby Rs. 8.22 per day, he said.

Mr Singh said the TINXSYS system was also being adopted in the state and all the traders would be provided TIN numbers.

He reiterated his government's resolve to provide best services to the traders and solve their grievances by according top priority.

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