VAT is the news ?

No liquor here, it’s all about taxation !

The proposal to initiate the VAT regime from 1st April has thrown the entire business and trading community (all intermediaries, as also consumers like me) in confusion (and panic) << Watch-out for the annoying pop-ups on the Times Of India links >>

i understand, VAT will rationalize the existing Sales Taxes structure, stop double-taxation and widen the tax net, thereby reducing tax-evasion and containing the parallel “black” economy. Transactions worth crores of Rupees done on "kachchaa" receipts now threaten to become history.

But then we Indians are renowned for our ingenuinity. My vyapari friends and their financial consultants (with all due respects to this tribe of true professionals !) will soon invent an elegant route to beat the system (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - is not for them !). So, my white-collared fellow countrymen, toil hard, earn more and pay your taxes... chug along in our Maruti while our friendly neighbourhood business tycoon flashes by in his shiny new Chevrolet (the year-end addition to the company assets) !

Introduction of the VAT regime has been stalled for more than 10 years, by various interest-groups and powers-that-be. Even now, the BJP-ruled State governments (the BJP is now the Opposition in the Parliament) have decided not to implement the VAT regime from 1st April.