Making the best use of Union Minister Parshottam Rupala’s presence in a co-op seminar in Delhi on Friday, Nafcub President Jyotindra Mehta tried to drive home the point that a matching reduction in taxes on co-operatives should happen in the wake of reduction of Corporate tax for companies by Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Is it a crime to do business within a cooperative frame-work, Mehta asked giving example of IFFCO which has to pay 33% tax while another company say Dipak fertilizer has to pay only 22% for producing the same fertilizer.
Elaborating the point further he said while HDFC has to pay just 22% corporate tax, small co-op banks and UCBs having a turnover of 15-20 crore or so have to pay 33%. Is not it ridiculous, he asked.
Mehta also compared tax on Campco and tax on Nestle and rued that cooperatives are not being treated on par with the corporate sector even while it does a societal service beyond commercial interests.
Nafcub intends to make a case out of this and has already written to Finance Minister, Finance Secretary and Agriculture Secretary. “I beseech you to help us in this” he said to Rupala who was listening to him intently sitting on the dais.
Later in his speech Union Minister Parshottam Rupala accepted the merit in Mehta’s argument and said “yes I agree with you; you have a valid argument.” Rupala also promised to do whatever he can to remove this anomaly.
Later on the phone Nafcub President said to Indian Cooperative that the matter is going to be debated in the Nafcub AGM scheduled on Saturday at the NCUI headquarters in Delhi.
Mehta also informed that besides Nafcub various co-op federations including IFFCO are demanding parity and have written a letter to the govt seeking a level-playing field.
