Punjab government, it seems, has put similar wine in new bottle with a few changed ingredients.
Two months after the state Cabinet gave its nod to a proposal for taxing direct to home (DTH) and local cable connections, the agenda was once against approved by the council of ministers on Wednesday with changes to make it in sync with the central act.
Punjab Cabinet, in its meeting on October 16, had approved ‘The Punjab Entertainments and Amusements Taxes (Levy and Collection by Local Bodies) Act-2017’ to replace the earlier entertainment tax system under the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime — which was to be placed before the Vidhan Sabha in its winter session.
However, the proposed Bill was shelved after the state legal remembrancer (LR) raised certain objections pointing that certain points in the Bill are in clash with the central act on regulation of cable television networks.
“After rectifying the issues in the Bill, it was again placed before the Cabinet for its approval, and we hope that it would go through soon,” said a senior government official, pointing that the implementation of the Bill would help the government to romp up additional revenue of Rs 45-47 crores.
Of this, Rs 9.60 crore would accrue on nearly 16 lakh DTH connections and Rs 36.96 crore on 44 lakh cable connections across the state.
The state Local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, known for his rivalry with the Badal family, has all along been making efforts to act against the Fastway cables, said to be owned by the SAD president Sukhbir Badal. The said act was also aimed at the same.
However, Sidhu had contended that the Act would make the cable operators accountable, besides providing a level playing field to all operators by ending monopoly of one.
Giving its nod to ‘'The Punjab Entertainments and Amusements Taxes (Levy and Collection by Local Bodies) Ordinance, 2017’, the Cabinet on Wednesday gave its go-ahead for the levy of entertainment tax on DTH and local cable connections by municipalities and panchayats.
The proposal mooted by the state Local Government Department was discussed at length by the cabinet before it gave its approval to levy nominal entertainment tax at the rate of Rs five per DTH connection and Rs two per local cable connection per month by all the Urban Local Bodies and gram panchayats of the state.
As per the move, no entertainment tax has been proposed on cinemas, multiplexes, amusement parks and other similar places providing facilities for entertainment and amusement.
The move was necessitated by the introduction of GST by the Central Government with effect from July 1, 2017, as a result of which entertainment tax being levied and collected by the state government stood withdrawn.
Under the GST regime, the right to impose entertainment tax has been wrested with the local bodies department which was earlier collected by the Excise and Taxation Department.
The object behind imposing tax was to bring on record the number of connections under all cable operators, including the Fastway — which, according to Sidhu” has been “fudging the figures” to evade taxes amounting to thousands of crores of rupees despite enjoying monopoly” over cable TV business in Punjab.