Nagpur: Dipen Agrawal, President of Chamber of Associations of Maharashtra Industry and Trade (CAMIT) welcomed the relaxation in Corporate tax announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday. “The back-to-back reliefs announced in last one month affirm that there is change in mindset at all levels of governance and administration.
The recent directions of FM not to classify the stressed MSME loans as NPA; directions on screening bank loan cases by CVC before handing over to investigating agencies are seen as government’s acknowledgement of prevailing liquidity crunch and slowdown in economy was welcomed by stock markets by a huge spurge in Sensex & Nifty,” he said.
“Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s continuous announcement of measures to revive Indian economy though in piecemeal will enable Corporate sector to revive its operations. But there is urgent need to address the issues of masses i.e. small and marginal traders the real employment givers,” Dipen Agrawal, President CAMIT, stressed.
Further applauding government’s move to reduce Corporate Tax to 22% (effective 25.17%) for companies not availing exemptions and reduction in minimum alternate tax (MAT) from 18% to 15% for companies availing exemptions, withdrawal of enhanced surcharge on capital gains arising from sale of shares and derivative transactions, Agrawal said that to have the desired result in economy, the Finance Minister should take stock of plight of traders from flood affected areas particularly from Maharashtra.
The traders have lost all their stock, records and infrastructure due to rains resulting in unprecedented flood. Unlike corporates the traders do not have servers or other IT facilities at different locations, they use and rely on local (in house) IT systems. CAMIT demands that Finance Ministry should extend the last date for filing Income Tax returns up to November 30, 2019 on compassionate ground and save the traders from the heavy penalty levied for delay in filing returns, added Dipen Agrawal.
