The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Visakhapatnam News : Seafood exporters to stop purchases

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Saturday, Apr 09, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

Seafood exporters to stop purchases

By Our Special Correspondent

VISAKHAPATNAM, APRIL 8. The Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) will suspend purchases and production as a token of protest on April 11 and will commence an indefinite strike from April 25, unless the Income-Tax authorities stop proceedings regarding reopening of assessments and withdraw demands of re-worked taxes.

The industry, which had been facing many problems during the last nine years, with the latest being the anti-dumping action and the tsunami impact, is hit hard by the latest acts of the I-T authorities, according to a press release from the SEAI.

It is critical of the reopening of the assessments on account of two factors: inadmissibility of deduction under Sec. 80 HHC of the Income-Tax Act wherein the derived income as per the Act is negative after deduction of export incentive, and inadmissibility of duty entitlement passbook (DEPB) income as an export income which effectively blocks the DEPB income from qualifying for deduction under Sec. 80 HHC.

`A let down'

This section was introduced in 1993 to encourage exports but trying to bring the export income back into the tax net through intelligent interpretation of what has been stated in the I-T Act, is a total let down of the export sector and business houses at large, says the SEAI.

Bank accounts of a few exporters have been attached and similar action is expected in the case of other exporters also, the association has said giving the reason for its protest programme.

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