No new tax in Maharashtra budget; incentives for farmers, tax concessions for traders announced

In the current budget, the state government claimed that Rs 11,000 crore will be spent on health services for the next three years. An outlay of Rs 3,183 crore has been proposed for Public Health and Family Welfare Department for program expenditure.

In order to make traders happy, the state government introduced the Amnesty Scheme 2022 for the Goods and Services Tax. “This Amnesty Scheme will be called Maharashtra Settlement of Arrears of Tax, Interest, Penalty or Late Fee Scheme -2022”, the minister announced in his budget speech.

The scheme is applicable on various taxes levied by the Sales Tax Department before the introduction of the GST Act. This will be effective from April 1, 2022, to September 30, 2022. Under this scheme, arrears of Rs 10,000 or less per year will be waived off. The MVA government said this will benefit small dealers in almost one lakh such cases.

Dealers who have arrears up to Rs. 10 lakh or less will pay a lump sum of 20 percent amount, as a result, medium dealers will benefit in almost two lakh and twenty thousand cases.

The state government also reduced the rate of VAT on natural gas from 13.5 percent to 3 percent.

On the tax concessions front, for those in the construction business, the state government has increased the stipulated time period of the Maharashtra Stamp Act from one year to three years. It has also proposed Stamp Duty exemption on gift deeds without consideration to corporations and institutions under the jurisdiction of state government. Stamp duty on gold-silver delivery order documents imported into the state has also been waived off.

Apart from this, the state government has kept a Rs 100 crore fund for startups. It has also assured to fully replace manual scavenging with technology.

Also, the farmers who have repaid their loans in time will be rewarded with Rs 50,000 incentive under Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Crop Loan Scheme, according to the budget.