Cash-strapped Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will have to pay over Rs.979 crore in unpaid entry tax to the Uttar Pradesh Government in the next two weeks after the Supreme Court asked the company to deposit half of the unpaid liability in cash.
IOC had challenged the Uttar Pradesh Government decision to levy a $5.78 a barrel entry tax on crude oil the company imported into the State for processing at its 8 million tonnes per annum refinery at Mathura.
“The High Court of Allahabad (on December 23, 2011) dismissed IOC's writ petition and upheld the UP Entry Tax Act, 2007, whereby the State of Uttar Pradesh was entitled to levy entry tax on crude oil brought into Mathura for refining in the Mathura refinery,” IOC said in a stock market filing.
ADVERTISEMENT
Company officials said IOC would be immediately required to pay about Rs.979.17 crore, half of Rs.1,958.34 crore entry tax and interest thereon demanded for the period from 1999-2000 to 2007-08. A bank guarantee for the balance 50 per cent would also have to be deposited by February 14.