1 year on, IT units ‘yet to receive tax benefit’ offered in govt policy

GURUGRAM: The Haryana industries and commerce department and the urban local bodies department appear to be on different pages with regard to property tax rate for businesses in the IT sector.
As per the Haryana IT and ESDM policy rolled out around a year ago, the IT sector shall be treated as an industry and hence, should be charged property tax at a rate applicable for other industries.

However, even after a year, MCG continues to collect property tax at commercial rates from IT companies. Industrialists from the sector claimed that they were currently paying taxes almost 60 times the industry rate. “It has been over a year since the policy was introduced. But IT units continue to pay property tax as per the commercial rates. MCG has not yet implemented the new clause, saying it would cause them huge revenue losses,” said Col. Raj Singhla, patron, Chamber of Industries, Udyog Vihar.

On Monday, industry representatives raised the issue during a meeting chaired by additional chief secretary Devendra Singh in Gurgaon. While Singh assured the industry representatives of speedy implementation of provisions of the IT policy, MCG and HSIIDC officials said nothing had been decided yet.

“The matter has been forwarded to the ULB secretary for consideration. However, no final decision has been taken in the matter yet,” said a senior HSIIDC official. He added that since the Haryana government was striving for the No. 1 position in ease-of-doing-business ranking in 2019, the decision was likely to be in favour of the IT sector.

Asked so as to why the corporation was delaying the matter when it was mentioned in the IT policy, MCG chief Yashpal Yadav said, “These (industries and ULB) are two different departments, and a decision on property tax rates has to be taken by the ULB department. The matter is under consideration of the state government and should be resolved soon.” Animesh Saxena, president, Udyog Vihar Industrial Association, said, “The state government should have considered these interdepartmental issues before putting this provision in the policy.”