IEP Chandigarh December 7
Haryana Chief Minister said that for the convenience of tax payers and lawyers, a GST tribunal will be set up in the state, which is expected to start by next March. For this a recommendation has been made to the GST Council. He further announced that two Joint ETC Range Appeal Offices would be opened at Hisar and Gurugram to resolve GST related problems.
Sh. Manohar Lal was addressing as chief guest in the one-day ‘Kar Samvad’ programme organized for the first time in the state by the Excise and Taxation Department, Haryana in collaboration with Haryana Tax Bar Associations at Gurugram today.
Deputy Chief Minister, Sh. Dushyant Chautala also participated in this programme as a special guest. During this, tax-related topics were discussed in detail with the representatives of the Haryana Tax Bar Associations.
The Presidents of the Haryana State Tax Bar Association and Karnal Tax Bar Association along with lawyers also attended the programme. During this, they shared the tax related problems with the Chief Minister. In this programme which lasted for about two hours, apart from the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, officials cleared their doubts regarding the GST and VAT dispute.
Sharing his views, Chief Minister said that ‘GST Aamne Samne’ forum will be started at the divisional level, providing a common platform to taxpayers, lawyers and officers of the Excise and Taxation Department to solve GST related problems in the state.
At the initial level, it will be started in all the 6 division of the state including Ambala, Karnal, Rohtak, Hisar, Gurugram, and Faridabad, in which taxpayers, tax lawyers and officers will solve tax related problems once in every month.
Besides this, Sh. Manohar Lal also called for promoting voluntary registration for GST and said that three lawyers who get the maximum number of registrations in a year would be felicitated. Through Haryana Tax Bar Association and Haryana State Tax Bar Association, the Chief Minister called upon all the tax lawyers of the state to cooperate in getting the maximum number of voluntary registrations done.
Libraries will be set up in each district for tax lawyers
The Chief Minister also announced to open a library of books related to tax-related subjects in every district of the state keeping in view the demand put forth by the tax lawyers. He said that this library would be opened on the DITC office premises. Along with this, a waiting hall with a canteen facility will also be made for the Tax Bar Association where the tax lawyers coming to the office for tax-related hearings can sit and discuss with their taxpayers.
Comparing Haryana with other states in terms of tax collection, the Chief Minister said that Haryana has only two percent of the country’s population, whereas if we look at the area, the total area of Haryana in the country is 1.6 percent, but the State’s share is 6 percent of the total tax collection of the country.
Giving credit for this to tax lawyers and taxpayers, Sh. Manohar Lal said that winning the trust of taxpayers in any state is the main objective of the government, in which tax lawyers play an important role.
Describing tax lawyers as a bridge, the Chief Minister said that in the tax collection process of the government, tax lawyers are like a bridge, who play an important role in increasing the treasury of the government along with redressing the difficulties of the taxpayers.
Earlier, Deputy Chief Minister, Sh. Dushyant Chautala said that after the introduction of GST, it took a long time for people to understand it. In such a situation, VAT collection was also a serious issue.
He said that the government has made efforts to clear the year-wise pendency of VAT-related subjects. He said moving towards digitization, soon arrangements will be made for this, in which the pendency of the oldest date will be cleared first and after that, the pendency will be cleared according to the date and year in the same order.
On this occasion, Additional Chief Secretary, Excise and Taxation Department, Sh. Anurag Rastogi said that countries like Australia, Canada, Malaysia etc., in these countries there was also dissatisfaction among the general public regarding GST, but India is the only country where this law has been successfully implemented without any hindrance and public dissatisfaction.
Sh. Rastogi said that it is the responsibility of the tax lawyers and their departments to increase the revenue of the government to prevent tax evasion and ensure that people file their correct returns on time. He hoped that both would be able to live up to this criterion.
President, Haryana Tax Bar Association, Advocate Ramnarayan Yadav, and President, Haryana State Tax Bar Association (Karnal), Sh. Sanjay Madan also shared their views during the programme. Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Sh. Ashok Kumar Meena, Deputy Commissioner, Gurugram, Sh. Nishant Kumar Yadav, Commissioner of Police, Kala Ramachandran and many dignitaries were present in the programme.
