Hyderabad: At a time when Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is struggling hard to mobilise every penny possible to fulfil his government’s commitments to the poor, clandestine efforts are on to dole out undue financial benefits worth Rs 150 crore to errant rice millers.
Some rice millers have been avoiding payment of tax arrears over the last few years after they were caught manipulating procedures. Inquiries by Deccan Chronicle revealed that the errant rice millers from the East and the West Godavari districts had struck a deal with a ruling party leader who dominates these two districts. Fearing that the CM might come to know of his involvement, he is said to be operating through a senior tax official.
Ironically, the note circulated by Peeyush Kumar, the Chief Commissioner of State Tax, to Rajat Bhargav, the Special Chief Secretary, Revenue, is self-explanatory a section of rice millers committed fraud, did not avail of the tax waiver scheme earlier by following the prescribed norms and declined to pay arrears during a special drive.
The Chief Commissioner also indicated that the government would lose heavily if the rice millers had their way. Yet, his department had been going soft on the rice millers instead of clamping down on them and collecting arrears, using the provisions of law. He mentioned in the letter that the government was the competent authority to waive off arrears from the rice millers.
In the pre-Goods and Services Tax regime, a two per cent tax was levied on the inter-state rice and broken rice sales if they were transported along with C form and five per cent tax in the absence of C form.
Several rice millers carried out sale transactions without the C form. Thanks to their lobbying, the previous Telugu Desam government waived the balance three per cent tax for 2014 and 2015 financial years. There was, however, a strict condition that those rice millers who would like to avail the waiver should have mandatorily paid the two per cent tax and completed tax assessment for the two fiscals.
“While some rice millers fulfilled the conditions and availed waiver, many ignored and continued to commit the same fraud till 2017 till the GST came into existence,” sources in the tax department told Deccan Chronicle. While the waiver for 2014 and 2015 would cost the government Rs 60 crore, another Rs 90 crore would be lost if the tax evasion for the remaining years was also taken into consideration, they added.
