Kerala   

Proper taxation of gold traders needed, says Thamarakshan

KASARAGOD: The State is losing huge amounts of money due to it as taxes on sales of gold ornaments because the authorities fail to assess the turnover of jewelleries in the State correctly, RSP (Bolshevik) State secretary A.V. Thamarakshan has said.

At a press conference here on Friday, Prof. Thamarakshan said the amount of Rs.96 crore received by the State government as tax from gold merchants was grossly inadequate considering the real turnover of the sector.

Going by the tax collected by the government, which was the amount paid by the gold merchants at the rate four per cent of their turnover, the total sales of all gold traders in the State was less than Rs.4,500 crore which was suppression of truth, noted Prof. Thamarakshan.

“Five years ago I had participated in a State meeting of gold merchants in which their leaders said their turnover was Rs.10,000 crore,” noted Prof. Thamarakshan.

Moreover, in a study conducted by RSP (B) it was found that that around six lakh marriages take place in the state every year and calculating the minimum gold purchased for the purpose, the total annual turnover of gold traders in the state was Rs.30,000 crore, said Prof. Thamarakshan.

He pointed out that the gold industry was the biggest advertiser in the state and the amount it spent for the purpose was staggering.

Mr. Thamarakshan opined that the claim of Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Issac that the State would achieve the target of zero revenue deficit by 2010 was a pipe dream.

The increased revenue receipts of the State as shown in the current budget was not a result of efficient tax collection but increase in the amount received by the State from the centre as its part of Central taxes, noted Prof. Thamarakshan.

The Finance Minister had also not taken into account the Revenue expenditure which the State would incur when 1,600 additional posts would be created by the government this year, said Prof. Thamarakshan. According to him, the State was in a debt trap as per capita debt of the state was Rs.20,654 compared to a per capita debt of Rs.6,100 of Bihar. He explained that the figures were based on statistics of Reserve Bank of India.

Referring to the explosive situation in Kannur, Prof. Thamarakshan demanded that the army be deployed in the district to control violence. Since the Home Minister was trying to protect the interests of his party only, the State police would not be able to work independently and contain violence, he said.

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