Kerala government’s amnesty scheme will save small retailers: KN Balagopal

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance Minister KN Balagopal on Friday said the latest amnesty scheme launched by the government was aimed at helping small-scale traders.

“The traders had complained that they were victims of wrong assessment by tax personnel and technical problems. Much of the resources of the taxes department had to be spent on the cases against defaulters. Government records show huge arrests, which are actually the sum of penal interest added to small arrests. All these factors prompted the government to announce the amnesty scheme,” Balagopal said in a statement on Friday.

He said that the previous amnesty schemes did not yield desired results, but the new one will “certainly help the small-scale retail sector.

“Earlier, the amnesty scheme was conceived as a revenue source. The new scheme aims to resolve perennial issues in the taxes sector. It covers pre-GST tax arrests and excludes arrests of turnover tax and compounding scheme related to liquor trade,” he said.

Under the scheme, cases against 22,267 businesses that have arrested upto Rs 50,000 will be dropped. Together, the arrests in the first slab amount to Rs 116 crore, around 44% of the total due amount.

The second slab in the amnesty scheme is for arrests between Rs 50,000 and Rs 10 lakh. Defaulters in the 51,516 cases under the slab need to pay 30% of the dues.

For the next slab, above Rs 10 lakh and upto Rs 1 crore, defaulters filing appeals should pay 40%, while the rest should pay 50%.

The reduction for the former is since they already paid the appeal amount.

The fourth slab covers arrests over Rs 1 crore. Those who filed appeals should pay 70%, while the rest should pay 80%. Traders joining the scheme in time will get full benefits, while benefits for those joining late will be lower, Balagopal said.