FICO meets city excise officials

A delegation of Federation of Industrial and Commercial Organisation (FICO) met assistant excise and taxation commissioner Ludhiana - 1 Darbara Singh and assistant excise and taxation commissioner Ludhiana-2 H S Ghotra regarding several issues related to cycle industry on Thursday.

President of FICO Gurmeet Singh Kular and secretary Rajiv Jain constituted the two-member delegation.

They raised several issue, including value added tax (VAT) refunds, reduction of VAT on bicycles and parts and TIN number.

“Government of Punjab has tried to solve problem of the industry regarding VAT refunds by crediting it online but it is a slow process. The refund should be faster so that the capital of the industry can be utilized at the faster pace,” said Kular.

He added the complicated process of first charging 6.05% VAT and then applying for 4.03 refunds should be done away with and the industry should be charged with only 2% VAT.

Jain said that C form should be issued online to reduce the rush at the department. “This will also give industry a hassle-free service. The repeated requests to stop the fourth stage verification for refund of VAT have also been made,” he added .He stated though the department has issued TIN numbers to all vendors that can be seen online, when we want to see the product in which these dealer deals, no information was available online.

“We have requested the department to update the items so that the buyer can verify the dealer and see the genuineness. It will prevent bogus billing as automatic verification will be done by purchasing dealers itself,” said Jain.