State budgets are becoming increasingly critical for businesses. In view of the complexity involved and thin business margin in majority business, there is growing need to understand the complexities of state taxes to optimise credit mechanism and also circumvent surprises arising out of assessments by tax authorities.

Key points of few recent state budget announcements are as under:

• Growing number of states have announced introduction of amnesty schemes to recover tax, close past assessments and reduce pending litigation
• Efforts are underway for development of IT infrastructure, training of officers in various states etc. for proposed implementation of GST
• With emphasis on ‘ease of doing business", and ‘Make in India’ initiatives, various State Governments are aligning with Central Government’s vision.

We hope this will be of interest and we intend to expand the efforts with more detailed coverage from next time.

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