Govt amending penalty clause in VAT Act

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 4: In order to make the Value Added Tax (VAT) system more dealers friendly, the State Government has decided to amend Section 67 of the J&K VAT Act, 2005 which pertains to imposition of penalty on the defaulters and Minister for Finance, Abdul Rahim Rather moved a Bill in this regard in the Legislative Assembly today.
While introducing the Bill, the Minister said, “during the Budget Speech for the year 2012-13, I announced to modify and simplify existing statutory provisions in view of the problems being faced by the dealers”.
“In case of an offence committed under Sub-Section (5) and (10) of Section 67 of the J&K VAT Act, the defaulting dealer is liable to pay security and penalty at the rate of twice the amount of VAT payable or 25 per cent of the value of goods, whichever is higher”, the Minister said, adding “as this provision operates harshly, I propose to remove the second part of the provision—25 per cent of the value of goods”.