Sikkimese women should get equal IT exemption: BJP

Gangtok, Mar 16 (UNI) The Sikkim unit of the BJP has urged Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram to change the retrospective date of April 1, 1990 to April 1, 2009 in the amendment made in the Income Tax Act which exempted the Sikkimese from income tax.

''The amendment is not practicable as a non-Sikkimese person will have to file their income Tax from April 1, 1990 i.e. since 18 years and pay the Income Tax,'' state BJP president H R Pradhan, in a memorandum faxed to the Union Finance Minister, said.

''In the event of their paying the Income Tax return from April 1, 1990, they will have to get the refund from the Sikkim government since 1990 and the state, with already a huge debt burden and fiscal liability, will not be able to refund the Income Tax already collected. In such an event it will be double taxation,'' Mr Pradhan said.

''It does not seem rational to bring the Sikkimese women who marry on or after April 1, 2008, into the ambit of the Income Tax,'' the BJP president said, adding that every Sikkimese woman, irrespective of her husband's citizen status, should be exempted from income tax.

Stressing that old businessmen, who were in Sikkim before the merger of the state to India, were treated equally.

''All those who hold the trade license before 1975 should be considered eligible for exemption like Sikkimese people,'' the BJP added.

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