With the Budget session of the Delhi Assembly slated to start next week, the All India Tax Advocates Forum (AITAF) on Thursday called upon the Delhi government to grant full financial autonomy to the Value Added Tax (VAT) Tribunal to enable it to manage its day-to-day affairs in order to ensure justice to tax-payers.
AITAF president M. K. Gandhi said here that the decision will not only ensure the Tribunal’s independence but also allow it to create basic infrastructure like its website, computerisation and staffing to meet its needs.
At present, litigants and lawyers were not able to access the cause list and orders passed by the Tribunal due to absence of a website, said Mr. Gandhi.
Suggesting several measures to boost the trading community’s business confidence, the AITAF chief said the Delhi government should extend the timeframe for filing revised VAT returns from the existing one year to at least two years in the forthcoming Budget.
“Previously, the timeframe for filing the revised return was four years, but it was reduced to one year in 2012. This is inconvenient for dealers as they effectively get only six months to revise the returns after the audit,” he added.
The AITAF also suggested that in order to boost tourism, foreign tourists should be given VAT refund, as is prevalent in the European Union, as well as several South-East Asian countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore.
Mr. Gandhi said the Budget should also further simplify the procedure for tax refund. The circular issued by the State government on June 10 for processing of refunds had prescribed an “extremely cumbersome” procedure involving verification by multiple agencies, he pointed out.
