DTO Thoubal falling short in tax collection
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, September 13 2018: Even though DTO Thoubal is yet to collect around Rs 4.8 6 lakh in professional tax from 144 vehicles, the office has not been able to properly identify vehicles yet to pay taxes as most of the registers containing detailed information of the vehicles were lost in a fire on August 26, 2016.According to an official source, this failure to collect the due amount has led to the authorities planning to take up steps like detaining the defaulting vehicles and even cancelling their permits.

The source mentioned that a meeting, chaired by the Transport Director, was held on September 10 to minutely discuss issues concerning the due professional tax.

During the meeting, DTO Thoubal was sternly instructed to create a new register by using other available documents and registers to identify the 144 vehicles which are yet to pay taxes.

DTO Thoubal was also instructed to notify the defaulting vehicle owners to pay their pending amounts or face appropriate legal actions, the source added.

Realising that it would be a herculean task to identify each and every vehicle at any given point of time as they might be moving from one place to another, the proposal for acquiring assistance from SP Thoubal for collecting the pending tax was also deliberated during the meeting.

The source conveyed that as the authorities have not been conferred with necessary powers to take up befitting actions against the defaulting vehicles under the Manipur Professions, Trades, Callings and Employments Taxation Act, 1981 till date, the authorities discussed about conducting drives and detaining the defaulting vehicles and even cancelling their permits.

With the involvement of the Taxation Department, step for deploying Transport Department Enforcement teams at the checkpoints to assist in collecting the due taxes was discussed, the source added.

On the other hand, a total of Rs 24.42 lakh in taxes are yet to be collected from 97 heavy vehicles operating under DTO Thoubal as well.

The source informed that there are records which showed that the said heavy vehicles paid their taxes from March 2012 till December of 2015 but after that, the owners of the vehicles have not paid any taxes thus resulting in pending tax of Rs 26.33 lakh.

However, during the meeting, DTO Thoubal produced records sh6wing that 33 of the said 97 vehicles had paid necessary taxes, amounting to around Rs 1.91 lakh.

Demand notices have been sent to 24 of the 97 heavy vehicles but 26 vehicles are still missing records of any kind due to loss of the documents/registers during the fire at DTO Thoubal, the source explained.

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