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There is never going to be an end to wants from industry. For a company which has been in business for five years or so, a few more years of tax concession or tax holiday would obviously be desirable and this keeps stretching for every new company that joins later.

There has been enough lobbying and it is time all concessions were ended. The country is plagued by very high levels of inflation and the common man is being crushed under the burden of inflationary pressures. Our health-care system is still dismally poor in reach when compared with developing economies.

Also, the country’s SEZ policy is highly flawed. It gives scope only to the rich corporates, in the first place, to even operate from an SEZ zone. Not every entrepreneur can imagine starting operations from an SEZ area and getting the taxation benefits; this is an issue that is constitutionally questionable. Concessions on inputs make sense as they encourage competitive pricing but an exemption on taxation makes no sense whatsoever.

Therefore, applying MAT to SEZ industries, as proposed by the Finance Ministry, is a desirable situation. After all, taxation is on profits made and no one can complain that taxes affect cost in the real sense.

Also, if any exemption is intended, the Government must first have the corporates pay the tax and refund the same after, say, five years.

This way, the government stands committed for usage of taxes mopped up for economic development and the fact that it has to refund the money after some time will make the effort in this direction more serious. Certainly we need to adopt a more sensible approach to taxation.

T. A. P. Krishnan Chennai

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