Sena alleges sales tax scam of Rs 15,000 crore in Maharashtra

Mumbai, Feb 4 (PTI) Shiv Sena today alleged a salestax scam of Rs 15,000 crore through the use of a bogusnotification of the state government.

"The state has lost Rs 15,000 crore tax since itcharged only two per cent tax instead of 12.5 per cent onvehicles sold outside the state between 2005 and 2010," seniorShiv Sena leader Subhash Desai today said.

The Sena leader distributed two notifications issuedby the Finance department with the same date October 17, 2005and same number 8(5) of CST Act 1956. One of the notificationis for charging half per cent tax on mobile handsets.

The other notification is for levying tax on Motorvehicles (with engine capacity more than 950 CC) sold in otherstates. Both the notifications were made available on thestate government website.

The vehicle companies used to pay 12.5 per cent salestax to the government for sales outside the state till 2005.

But between 2005 to 2010 only two per cent of tax was chargedon these vehicles, Desai alleged.

"When we tried to check the sudden reduction in thesales tax on the vehicle, we found a bogus notification withthe same number and date of mobile notification," he saidadding the sales tax notification introduced for mobilehandsets was used for the vehicles to evade the extra taxamount (12.5 per cent) by just changing words.

After complaints made to the Sales Tax Departmentabout the bogus notification, it was withdrawn from thegovernment website, Desai said. The sales tax commissioner hasordered department level enquiry into the matter, he added.

The Sena leader met Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavantoday and demanded a CBI probe in the matter.