The Hindu Business Line : Traders' body releases VAT rate chart for States to highlight variations

THE Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Friday released a `VAT rate comparison chart' involving 12 States to highlight what it considers as the existence of a large number of variations in VAT rates under the new tax system.

"The VAT tax rate schedules of most of the States that have opted for VAT reflects mass variations and disparities from those agreed before the empowered committee," said Mr Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary General of CAIT, after releasing the comparison chart that covered about 93 items.

He said that the chart was drawn on the basis of VAT schedules of States downloaded from the Web sites. The chart contained only items classified in the schedules by the States.

Mr Khandelwal pointed out that the States that were considered for the purpose of comparison had not listed all the 550-odd items that are currently covered under the VAT system.

The 12 States that had been taken up by CAIT for comparison include West Bengal, Delhi, Punjab, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.

The Chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on VAT, Dr Asim Dasgupta, held that variations in VAT rates were "not significant" if all the 21 States that had implemented VAT were considered as a whole. CAIT has refuted this claim of the empowered committee.

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