People's Democracy

CITU Opposes Move To Write Off Tax Arrears

The following is the text of the statement issued by CITU secretariat on January 4, 2007

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) expresses serious concern over the reported move by the union government to write off Rs 85,000 crore tax arrears as ‘non-recoverable’ out of the outstanding Rs 1,19,000 crore tax arrears due till 2003-2004. The move falls in tune with the pattern of writing off huge amount of Non Performing Assets (NPA) of public sector banks.

The CITU regrets the government’s double standards on resource mobilisation where on the one hand it cites resource crunch to justify reduction in subsidies or sale of government shares in PSUs, and on the other hand thousands of crores of rupees, doled out to the corporates, are being written off on one plea or other.

The CITU demands that the list of tax defaulters should be made public before the government takes any decision on writing off the tax arrears.