Twenty one states which have switched over to Value-Added Tax on Tuesday agreed to adopt uniform rates for industrial input, capital goods and essential commodities like medicines, salt, bread and PDS items.
After the Centre, the states have joined the fight against inflation. Later this month, they will discuss a proposal to exempt rice, wheat and pulses from value added tax.
Punjab government has approved Anil Ambani Group's Rs 5,000-crore (Rs 50 billion) multi-product special economic zone in the state.
The official panel on value added tax decided on Thursday to ask the Centre to cut Central Sales Tax, imposed on inter-state movement in goods, to three per cent from the current four per cent from October.
The Centre is planning to establish a Taxation Information Exchange System to track inter-state trade of all commodities after the phase-out of Central Sales Tax.
A day after empowered committee of state finance ministers expressed its determination to implement VAT from April1, traders on Tuesday said they will "gherao" Parliament on Wednesday in protest against the new "inflationary" tax system.
ICICI Infotech outsmarted Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro to get the mandate from states for setting up a national tax information exchange system (Tinxsys) to track inter-state transactions and check tax evasion.
The meeting of the Empowered Committee of Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories began with some states demanding that they be allowed to charge service tax on certain items pending a decision on the implementation of VAT.
The threat by IT firms to boycott the annual mega IT show here in October seems to have blown over after state government promised to upgrade Bangalore's infrastructure.
In a major step towards tax reforms, the Centre on Tuesday agreed on a 3-tier system of compensating the states that incur revenue loss on account of implementing the value-added tax from April 2005.
Six more states are set to join the value added tax regime from April
The contentious issue of value added tax was resolved on Tuesday with the state finance ministers deciding to implement from June 1 the new tax system in place of the sales tax.
The apex court raised the ceiling limit of iron ore mining from 28 MMT to 35 MMT for Ballari district, and from 7 MMT to 15 MMT for Chitradurga and Tumkur districts.
The panel on value added tax has decided that items which have at least 50 per cent industrial use will attract 4 per cent tax rate for that particular use.
Maharashtra is likely to incur a revenue loss of Rs 1,500-2,000 crore (Rs 15-20 billion) in the current fiscal due to implementation of value added tax.
The panel said that vacant posts in the CBI are not being filled up at the required pace and recommended that "every effort should be made to fill up vacancies at the earliest".
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday sought to give credit to his party for the women's reservation bill but Home Minister Amit Shah refuted his claim, saying that the legislation brought by the Manmohan Singh government had lapsed following the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha.
The state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has walked away with bulk of the 21 oil and gas exploration blocks in the fourth round of new exploration licensing policy.
Finance Minister Jaswant Singh will soon convene a meeting of state chief ministers to work out details for implementation of the much-delayed value added tax in the country.
With only West Bengal sending in the draft amendments to Value-added Tax Bill, the finance ministry said on Thursday that a new roadmap will be drawn up for the implementation of the progressive tax regime, which was to be effective from June 1.
The crucial meeting of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on value-added tax began in New Delhi on Wednesday to resolve all pending issues to ensure smooth implementation of the new tax regime from June 1 this year.
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