Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj has assured India Inc the tax department will not dial for extra tax payment in March. He also asked the industry what was stopping them from investing in the country.
Addressing the Annual General Meeting of industry chamber CII, Bajaj said that tax regime is now stable and the industry should not look at the Union Budget for any change in the tax rate. He also appreciated industries for their better performance during the pandemic which is reflecting in the earnings; however, he wanted to know why impressive corporate performance has not resulted in the kickstarting of private investment. Bajaj has asked corporates to present their issues.
Further, the Revenue Secretary said that revenue has increased without any upward revision of tax rate.
“I can assure you that one of the things we will work on is that we will try and get due taxes from you; yes, for that we might call you. We might make calls to you to understand what are the advance taxes you are planning to pay, which is only for understanding and planning for our own revenues, but we will not call you asking to pay extra taxes in the month of March,” he said.
On the question regarding the high GST rate on two-wheelers, Bajaj said he is thinking not only about two-wheelers, but also about four-wheelers which attract GST at the rate of 28 per cent plus cess. This will continue for some more time as imposition of cess has been extended beyond June 2022, he said, referring to borrowing against the cess receivables to pay compensation shortfall now.
Disinvestment
DIPAM (Department of Investment and Public Asset Management) Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said that new PSE policy as announced in the Budget is going to be the 1991-moment for public sector enterprises in the country.
Participating in the discussion, DIPAM Secretary Pandey said that since many pandemic-related restrictions such as traveling etc. have been lifted, privatisation of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) is back on a firm footing. “We intend to do the privatisation of Air India, BPCL, Shipping Corp of India, Pawan Hans, BEML and Neelachal Ispat Nigam this year,” he said adding that these companies got sufficient interest from bidders and are now at the due diligence and financial bidding stage.
When asked about why PSU shares are not highly rated in the stock market, he said it depends upon number of things, but expressed hope that it will change post the new PSE policy.
“In 1991, organisational reforms could not be carried forward while there were many structural reforms such as export import, import substitution policy, lot of macro-economic reforms, lot of industrial reforms and the private sector was brought in but existing public sector has remained even after 30 years. So, how does a public sector retain its edge vis-à-vis the private sector unless they bring in the same level of flexibility, autonomy, operational efficiency and the leadership? If it is not forthcoming, we can’t really expect them to be highly rated,” he explained.