- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 3512 views
Pay to get Assessment order from Sales tax office or face harrassment!!!
- Commercial Tax, Sales Tax, VAT
- Assessment
- Paid INR 1,000
This is with regard to the practises at the Sales tax office of Coonoor(Commercial tax office). Coonoor is a small town in Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.Paying a bribe in the sales tax office is very commn practice here else we face the harrasment from the officials of the Sales Tax office.
Before the VAT was introduced, the TNGST Act and CST Act was in force for collection of taxes. Small businesses were allowed to have self assessment and we can submit the declaration directly to the CTO.Now since VAT has been enforced, officials still have CST ACT to trouble people.
I had been to the Sales tax office to submit the declaration. however, Initially i was asked to come at a later ********** and a specific time to submit the accounts. The officer in charge collected the documents and kept asking questions as to how the sales figures n everyhting was obtained. Then he wanted extra documents stating the sales fugures, purchase figures for his qucik reference. Then he says the figures submitted are wrong as his ledger has different fugures. The fact is that his ledger has not been updated n dont even have the sales figures recorded or the past 6months. The interstae sales also have not been recorded. Finally he says that there are no staff and they dont have money to buy even stationery for the office and he demands Rs.1000. I tell him the company sales turnover is less and everyhting is in order.He says that if we dont want to pay money...he needs to visit our office and go through all the files and then we need to produce all the files.
I should admit that it is to avoid this kind of haraasment from officials we have to pay bribes. Infact i negotiated for the amount and he did not budge as well. Finally i had to pay Rs.1000 to get the assessment order signed. NOt only this...after I come out...everybody in the office needs money too starting from the peon to all the middle level offices. Well its not bribe as they claimed that Diwali was coming up and they had expnses to ********** and that they ask for money only once a year!!!
It certainly is a pity!!!