Facing financial crisis, govt yet to recover Rs 1,366 cr tax dues from industries, traders

Tribune News Service

Solan, August 31

The state government is grappling with the worst-ever financial crisis but it is yet to recover tax arrears to the tune of Rs 1,366 crore pertaining to the pre-Goods and Services Tax (GST) era from big industries and traders. There are about 15,000 such pending cases awaiting settlement.

The State Taxes and Excise Department has set an annual target to recover Rs 956.62 crore tax dues from all districts but the recovery process is yet to gather pace. The department has also set a monthly target of recovering Rs 79.72 crore from all districts.

A sum of Rs 414 crore tax dues is to be recovered from Solan (Rs 24 crore need to be recovered every month), followed by Rs 301 crore from Baddi excise district (Rs 17.5 crore every month). Solan and Baddi house more than 90 per cent of the industry in the state. Tax dues of Rs 223 crore are yet to be recovered from Sirmaur district (Rs 13 crore has to be recovered every month). A sizable number of industrial units are present in Sirmaur. For other districts, the monthly targets are between Rs 6.6 crore and Rs 20 crore, as per the data accessed by The Tribune.

In 2020, the state government had introduced the Himachal Pradesh Legacy Cases Resolution Scheme under which the taxpayers could deposit their dues along with the prescribed settlement fee. No interest and penalties were charged in such cases.

The legacy scheme was rolled out to settle the pending cases of Value Added Tax (VAT) and Central Sales Tax (CST), which were later subsumed in the GST. The period of this scheme was extended several times with some modifications. The last such scheme, which was notified in September 2023, ended in December 2023. No such scheme was notified for the smooth settlement of pending tax cases since then.

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had announced that another tax settlement scheme would be launched soon but it was yet to be notified. Tax dues to the tune of crores of rupees are yet to be recovered from several big companies, which have filed cases against the entry tax introduced by the government in 2010. Besides major corporate houses, telecom companies like Reliance Jio, Airtel, BSNL and hydroelectric projects also owe a sizeable amount of tax dues.

The first tax dues settlement scheme was introduced in January 2020 and Rs 393 crore was recovered.