VAT evasion to get more difficult

In order to tighten its nose around traders who have been evading payment of Value Added Tax, the AAP government has now made it mandatory for all registered traders to provide prior information about the movement of petroleum products, tobacco and gutka to other states. The products which have been exempted from giving prior declaration about their movement to places outside Delhi are petrol, diesel, aviation turbine fuel and petroleum gas or compressed natural gas.

A notification issued to this effect by VAT commissioner S.S. Yadav said that the new decision would be implemented from June 1. But the traders wing of the Aam Aadmi Party is said to be upset with the notification.

A delegation of the traders is likely to rake up the matter with the VAT commissioner on Monday. All that now the traders would be required to do is to fill up an online form titled “Delhi Sugam-1” (in short referred to as DS1)” in place of T-1 form which had been earlier issued on similar lines.

The notification said : “Now the Department of Trade & Taxes has designed and developed a new simplified online form namely Delhi-Sugam-1 (In short DS1) in place of form T-1 for providing information to the department in respect of movement of any goods from Delhi to any place outside the territory of Delhi due to sale, stock transfer or for whatever reason, by the registered dealers by using their login, before actual movement of the goods occurs.”

The earlier T-1 form had mandated the traders to provide information of the movement of these products consequent to their sale, stock transfer or local movement.

But the new form is to be filled by all the registered dealers for all the commodities before their actual movement takes place.

In the DS-1 form, the government has categorised it under six heads — nature of the form for a particular product, sale details with seller’s TIN with invoice number and date, details of the commodity to be transported outside the city, mode of transport to be used and description of the transporter engaged in the movement of the goods.

The issuing of the notification is being interpretted in the political circles as an attempt by the AAP to tap leakages in VAT collections.