Articles by Sukumar Mukhopadhyay

The modifi cations to the General Anti-Avoidance Rules proposed by the Shome Committee are largely reasonable. The only point that is hard to agree with is the suggestion that the implementation of the rules be put off for three years.

The fierce opposition to the General Anti-Avoidance Rule proposed in the Union Budget for 2011-12 was mainly because it shifted the burden of proof to the taxpayer and because tax offi cials were perceived to have been granted too much discretionary power. Backing down, the finance minister subsequently announced amendments to address these issues and the provisions are to apply from 1 April 2014, a year later than originally proposed.

Reforms of indirect taxes in the budget amount to almost nothing. Customs tariffs have remained about the same while the number of exemptions have increased. In the case of CENVAT, rules remain complicated and the claim that rates have gravitated towards 16 per cent is not true. Service tax needs to be aligned with CENVAT to create a goods and services tax at the central level. Two parallel GSTs at the state and central levels, rather than a national GST, must be introduced.

Revenue growth is the most important aspect by which to judge the success of VAT in Haryana. The deemed growth of revenue estimated by the Commercial Tax Department of Haryana, however, has not taken into account a number of positive factors discussed in this paper. As Haryana implemented VAT only in 2003, one year is too short a period to judge its efficiency from a revenue point of view.

Excise duty rates remain complicated in spite of claims of simplification. Exemptions have to be reduced and the number of rates brought down to only four.