15 percent investment allowance should be applied to small industries too

Jamshedpur: The 15 per cent investment allowance to a manufacturing company that invests Rs 25 crore or more in new plant and machinery is welcome move by the Modi Government but the same should have been applied to small industrialists also which would have spurred growth while more jobs would have been created, said SS Gupta, a Chartered Accountant from Kolkata who was in the Steel city to address a seminar on Direct Taxes-Recent Amendments at Chamber Bhawan on Tuesday.

Talking to media persons on the sidelines of the seminar Gupta said �In the span of 45 days the new government and its Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley has rolled out a good budget. As Jamshedpur is an industrial town the small scale industries units here are large in number which would have been benefited with 15 per cent tax rebate while more units would have come up in adjoining Adityapur making way for employment as industrialists here invest not more than Rs 5 crore to set up a unit�.

You can�t expect more from a government which was just 45 days old while presenting its first budget and its had something in it for everyone were the salaried class benefited the most as the income tax limit is increased, added Gupta.

Gupta further informed that in order to widen the tax base and bring under the net the zero taxpaying companies the government has imposed 18.5 per cent Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT), a variant of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) introduced by former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on all business houses and partnership firms.

He said that the main aim of the government for imposing AMT is to bring transparency among tax payers and an effort to make sure that high income earners paid a suitable amount of tax without being able to make large deductions.

According to the provision, a business entity will have to pay minimum AMT of 18.5 per cent even after claiming deductions allowed under the Income Tax Act.

President of Singhbhum Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Suresh Sonthalia said that the main motive of organizing the seminar was to give detail description about all the sections of the budget focusing on direct tax as many things are not clear when the finance minister reads out the budget.

On the occasion chief guest was Amitava Bakshi, Chief (Procurement) Tata Steel were students, businessmen, members of the Chamber including KL Mittal, Shrawan Kabra, Dilip Golcha, Bharat Vasani and others were present.