Amid industry’s claims of delay in tax refunds, Punjab Excise and Taxation Department on Saturday said that the pendency in value added tax (VAT) refunds have come down sharply, while at the same time, there is no dearth of funds for the payment of refunds.
Punjab Excise and Taxation Commissioner Anurag Verma said that the pendency of refunds has come down from Rs547 crore to Rs273 crore while attributing the drop in pendency to creation of dedicated fund for making tax refund.“There is no dearth of funds for grant of VAT refunds,” he said, adding that earlier, “average monthly outflow of refunds was about Rs45 which has now been doubled to about Rs90 crore”. For the month of June, funds to the tune of Rs200 crore have been allocated for giving refunds, said Verma.
Verma said that the maximum pendency of VAT refunds was in ludhiana which stood at Rs128 crore out of total pending refund of Rs273 crore. He said that the problem of pendency arose as one of the Department’s official at ludhiana was appointed as Assistant Returning Officer in lok Sabha polls. Excise Commissioner said that out of 2.25 lakh total registered dealers in Punjab, only about 4,000 were tax refund seekers.