Bengal commercial tax amnesty scheme yet to gain momentum

West Bengal commercial taxes department's amnesty scheme for business entities not paying value added tax liability, is yet to gain pace.

"We are getting lot of inquires, but not sure about how many business entities has actually availed the scheme," Commercial Taxes Commissioner Binod Kumar said here today on the sidelines of an interactive session with Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"We are campaigning the scheme. The amnesty scheme is valid till July 31 and people may be waiting for declaration later," Kumar said.

The scheme allows self-declaration from a non-registered entity for all its past VAT liabilities. It offers an entity to make self assessment of turnover and pay the tax at the rate of just two per cent for all the past VAT liabilities without any penalty, instead of regular liability of between five and 14.5 per cent of sales.
 

In 2014-15, the department had total revenue collection of Rs 27,755 crore, up by about ten per cent over the previous fiscal.