The Finance Ministry announced to an industry delegation that it should not expect a further cut of corporate, excise and service taxes in the Budget to be presented by the next finance minister.
The Indian government had reduced excise duty by 4 percentage points across the board and service tax by two percentage points in stimulus packages of December and January to limit the impact of global downturn on the Indian economy.
Excise duty in the 8-10 per cent slab is levied on most industrial goods. The corporate tax rate is 30 per cent.
The delegation were informed that a roadmap for executing the Goods and Service Tax (GST) is being finalised by a team headed by the Additional Secretary in the Revenue Department, K Jose Cyriace.
S S N Moorthy, Central Board of Direct Taxes Chairman, also attended the meeting.
Inverted duty structure where customs duty on finished products is higher than raw material would be removed.
The UPA government tabled the Interim Budget in February and sought Parliament’s approval to draw money from the Consolidated Fund of India to meet expenditure till July.
The industry delegates sought tax benefits for Indian firms in defence production.
It industry chambers also demanded that the Software Technology Parks Scheme, due to lapse in March 2010, should be extended by another few years
©2009 Copyright by Invest In India