Chandigarh, July 29 (IANS) Buckling to pressure from alliance partner BJP, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal Tuesday ordered withdrawal of an amendment made in the Punjab VAT act which made it mandatory for traders and industrialists to remit VAT on the stocks as well. The Punjab government had brought an amendment recently in the VAT (Value Added Tax) Act, 2005 to check evasion of input tax credit (ITC). While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership in the state, which is part of the government, mounted pressure to withdraw the amendment, various traders’ associations had met Badal, who is the excise and taxation minister, seeking its withdrawal. The excise department has 249,421 registered traders out of which only 1,063 traders paid more than Rs.one crore tax per annum that becomes 85 percent of the total VAT collection of Punjab.
Source: https://in.news.yahoo.com/bjp-mounts-pressure-punjab-withdraws-vat-amendment-144204564–finance.html