Chandigarh, October 29
Introducing a facility without the requisite infrastructure seems to be a habit with the Punjab government. The latest in a series of such faux pas is the decision taken by the state Excise and Taxation Department making e-filing of VAT returns mandatory for inter-state traders.
The department has identified over 75,000 assessees across the state for e-filing of VAT returns so far. However, it has neither issued passwords to all assessees for the e-filing nor updated its software.
With October 30 being the last date for e-filing of VAT returns, thousands of assessees in the state are in a fix. Though the department officials claim that the traders themselves had to approach them to get the password, the latter complain that there was no intimation by the department.
“In many cases where the passwords were provided to the assessees, the system failed to accept the password and it had to be regenerated again,” Ludhiana-based taxation consultant Naval Bansal said.
Traders have also complained that the software being used by the department was old and did not commensurate with the software being used by them for filing of returns.
“It is difficult to file the returns as it takes a long time to send the attachments, as the software has not been upgraded since year 2002. Most of the lawyers and traders are using the latest version of this software,” rued RS Sachdeva, co- convenor of the Punjab committee of PHD Chamber, while demanding that the last date for filing of returns be extended.
However the department officials denied all charges, claiming that the e-filing mode has been a great success, with as many as 60,000 assessees having already filed their VAT returns online.
Excise and Taxation Commissioner A. Venu Prasad informed TNS that the department had set up special camps at over 80 locations across the state for traders to get their passwords. “We had also tied up with some private franchisees after training their staff on how to access passwords for traders from our website. Also, traders can generate the password on their own by logging on to the department website by giving their PIN number till tomorrow,” he said.
