The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on Tuesday adopted a Bill to reintroduce an effective Samadhan Scheme to provide another opportunity to settle the arrears of tax, penalty (prior to GST regime) and interest payable to the government pertaining to the assessments under various Acts up to 2017-18. Assessments made on or before March 31, 2021 would benefit from the scheme.
The Bill introduced by Minister for Commercial Taxes and Registration P. Moorthy and adopted by the House the same day is in line with the announcement made by the Tamil Nadu government in the floor of the Assembly on August 13, 2021 that it would launch an effective Samadhan Scheme to clear pending dues of ₹28,000 crore under Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax and other legacy legislations.
Representations were received from various trade associations for the reintroduction of the Samadhan Scheme for expeditious settlement of the pending cases and in order to mitigate the hardship of the dealers and to reduce tax litigations.
The legislation said that the government has decided to give another opportunity to the dealers to settle the arrears of tax, penalty and interest payable to the government pertaining to the assessments under the said Acts for the assessment years up to 2017-2018 (i.e., up to 30.06.2017), which has been made on or before the 31 March 2021.
The system of levy of tax on Goods and Services i.e. GST was introduced across the country, from July 1, 2017. A large amount of tax, penalty and interest are pending under various repealed Acts. Dealers were not able to pay the taxes levied over various reasons, including some court judgments.
The State government had introduced Samadhan Schemes in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011 by enactment of various legislations, with a view to expedite the collection of arrears. However, a substantial amount of arrears due to the government under the relevant Acts are still pending for collection and hence the reintroduction of Samadhan Scheme.
The House also adopted two more Bills tabled by Mr. Moorthy. While one sought to give effect to the recommendations of the GST Council meetings and by amending the TN GST Act, 2017, another sought to amend the Chit Funds Act, 1982 in its application to Tamil Nadu so that the State government can empower subordinate authorities to hear appeals moved by aggrieved parties.
