Thursday, December 12, 2013: It is being reported that members of Trade Associations all over Maharashtra will be holding morchas, rallies or meetings in order to show their displeasure against the proposed local body tax (LBT). Additionally, they will be submitting a memorandum to the commissioners of municipal corporations in places where LBT is in force.
A meeting was held of all the Associations of Nagpur on Monday this week where it was decided that since the Maharashtra assembly is in session in Nagpur, therefore, a token bandh will be observed on Friday. A big scale morcha to the assembly will also be carried out to handover the memorandums of all the 26 municipal corporations and individual associations to chief minister Prithviraj Chavan.
Mohan Gurnani, president Federation of Associations of Maharashtra (FAM) said former Mumbai municipal commissioner Subodh Kumar along with Dilip Dixit, former additional commissioner of Sales Tax have proposed an alternate source of revenue in place of LBT and octroi, TOI reported.
They have suggested an increase in VAT by 1 per cent on items that have 5 per cent VAT (Excluding Declared Goods) at present. Moreover, 2.5 per cent increase in the VAT rate of items have been recommended for those items that have at present 12.5 per cent VAT. “These recommendations when implemented will fetch Rs 1,34,220 million to the exchequer against its total requirement of Rs 1,19,450 million thus providing a surplus of Rs 14,770 million. The recommendations will not burdened rural consumers. The gram panchayats will continue to get Rs 1250 million as Grant-in-Aid from the state government,” he added.
