All primary agricultural cooperative societies, credit cooperative societies, and the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative Society (CAMPCO) Ltd. and its branches in Dakshina Kannada will observe bandh on Saturday to protest against the Union Government's proposal of bringing cooperative bodies under the direct tax code.
Addressing a joint press conference here on Tuesday, CAMPCO president Konkodi Padmanabha and president of Dakshina Kannada District Central Cooperative Bank Ltd. M. N. Rajendra Kumar said the Government had proposed to impose 33 per cent tax on the profits of cooperative societies.
It would affect the business operations of cooperative societies. If the Government went ahead with the proposal many cooperative societies would be forced to close down.
It would affect many farmers who were dependent on cooperative societies, besides affecting the livelihoods of the employees of those societies.
They said that about a thousand representatives of different cooperative societies would organise a protest meeting at Town Hall here from 10.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. It would be an apolitical protest meet.
They said the Government should continue tax exemption extended to cooperative societies under Section 80 P of Income Tax Act, 1961. It should withdraw its order of bringing urban cooperative banks under the tax net.
Mr. Padmanabha said that about 8 to 10 developed countries in the world had not imposed tax on the profits of cooperative societies.
He said that Dakshina Kannada had 750 cooperative societies. However, milk producers' cooperative societies and the DCC bank would not be shut down on Saturday.
But its representatives would attend the protest meeting at the Town Hall.
