Govt gains over Rs 30,000cr under Sabka Vishwas, extends scheme to recover Rs 2.9 lakh crore pending dues

The Centre’s Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019 has yielded marginal results as the government recovered Rs 30,627 crore from settled disputes of eligible taxpayers till December, the Financial Express reported.

The disputed amount for 1.83 lakh cases was Rs 3.6 lakh crore in September. Thus, the amount involved in still-unresolved disputes is a staggering Rs 2.9 lakh crore.

As such, the one-time window which was supposed to end on December 31 has been extended till January 15 by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).

Cash crunch in slow economic conditions has been cited as a reason for the large unresolved disputes. But, the government said there was interest in the scheme and wanted to ‘ensure that eligible taxpayers did not miss out’, the paper added.

As per a notice on Press Information Bureau website, the Sabka Vishwas scheme aims to help taxpayers clear disputes under legacy taxes (Service Tax and Central Excise), which are subsumed under Goods and Service Tax (GST).

For cases of voluntary disclosures, the party is not liable to prosecution and receives a waiver of interest and penalty on payment of full tax dues disclosed. For cases other than voluntary, it provides 40-70 percent relief on the dues, depending on the amount of the dues involved with no interest or penalties.