The office-bearers of Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal (PPBM) have sought the abolition of requirement of mentioning commodities in VAT forms, while demanding restoration of the old procedure wherein only trade name was required.

In a representation sent to excise and taxation commissioner Anurag Verma, PPBM presidentAmrit Lal Jain said that selection of appropriate commodity out of 1,700 items has posed a serious legal problem to them. “A large number of disputes, pertaining to right item under the right commodity type were already pending in courts,” he said.
Jain added that the only language that an ordinary dealer understands is how a commodity is normally identified in trade parlance. “Asking a dealer to define a commodity in a name different from its billing name is tantamount to befooling him and making him part with his money. The issues, which sometimes fail the best of legal brains, have been left to be decided by barely-educated dealers,” Jain added.

He maintained that as far as this issue is concerned, even the Vat practitioners have left the dealers to their fate and they have asked the dealers to determine the name of the commodity or the description of the item themselves.

“Further when a dealer goes to the department concerned for registration and provides the list of items, the department officials themselves are not able to identify the items required to be registered with the commodity names provided in the software and they are not described in the registration certificate on the simple pretext of non-availability of a matching name in the software,” he said.

“Further all items entered in the system do not appear in the registration certificates. This is an all glaring truth and can easily be verified from the records of the department concerned,” Jain alleged.

Jain further said that the dealer, consequently, is in complete darkness at present as to what items are covered by his registration certificate. “Still the department wishes the dealer to come out with specific description of item,” he said.

He added that it was surprising how did the excise and taxation department manage to confine millions of commodities into nearly 1,700 items.