The Gujarat government is yet to recover Value Added Tax (VAT) and sales tax amounting to more than Rs1,320 crore from various companies and industries in the state. The list of 132 companies also has big corporate names such as Reliance Industries, Nirma Ltd, Reliance Communication, Essar Steel, L&T, Asima Ltd and state and union public sector companies including Gujarat Alkalies and Chemical Limited, Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals Limited, ONGC, Bharat Petroleum, IOC and HPCL among others.
The list of companies, which owe VAT and sales tax amounting to more than Rs10 crore, was put up in the Assembly during the budget session on February 28.
It was tabled as a reply to a question by Babu Meghji Shah who is a Congress MLA of Rapar constituency from Kutch. Shah had questioned the state government about the delay in payment of VAT and sales tax levied on the listed companies. The due date was December 31, 2010. He had specifically asked for the duration from which the companies had not paid the taxes.
The reply submitted by the state government lists names of 132 companies which have not paid their taxes for the last one year or more than two years.
There are 105 companies, which have not paid tax amounting to more than Rs10 crore for over two years. It includes industry giants - Reliance Industries, Reliance Communications, Nirma Ltd, Essar Oil Ltd, Essar Steel Ltd, ICICI, Gujarat State Finance Corporation, Bharat Petroleum, IOC and HPCL among others.
There are seven companies which have not paid tax for the last two years; it includes companies and cooperative institutions like L&T ECC, BPCL, Mehsana District Milk Producer Cooperative Union and NK Corporation.
Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Limited, Asima Ltd, NK Protein are few of the 19 companies which have not paid taxes for last one year. Apart from these there are 104 companies which are yet to pay more than Rs1 crore as VAT and sales tax. The list of such 104 companies was tabled in reply to a question raised by Siddharth Patel.
