The ongoing war of words between the governing National People’s Party (NPP) and opposition Congress continued today, with NPP spokesperson and MLA Marcuise N Marak attacking former Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma for costing Meghalaya hundreds of crores in tax income when the latter was in charge.
“It is amusing how Mukul Sangma comes out once in a while, without any facts and figures, to gain petty political mileage with the help of lies. At a time when the government is going all out to recover all the bad debts and overturn all the bad financial decisions made under the Congress, Mukul is trying to pass on the buck to the MDA (Meghalaya Democratic Alliance) government,” Marak said. “Before coming out to take the moral high ground, he should not forget about the bad financial situation he had put the state through.”
The NPP spokesperson said that under the previous Congress regime, tax collection was at its lowest levels, with serious anomalies in the collection (or rather non-collection) having been highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
“Mukul has to take responsibility for all wrongdoings and misdeeds. It is possible that because the Congress has stayed away from actual politics for so many [years] now, they are beginning to forget the blatant misdoings of their government. It should be a good practice for them to refresh their memories,” Marak quipped.
He also defended the one-time settlement scheme that has been offered to those behind on their taxes. Under this scheme, defaulters can pay only 70 percent of what they owe, thereby receiving a waiver of the remaining 30 percent.
“This means that taxpayers, who had not paid even a single penny to the government since the time of the directionless Congress government, are now being incentivized to come forward and clear the majority amount of money,” Marak said.
So far, the department has identified 50 big taxpayers and has been able to recover Rs 9.66 crore in taxes, an amount in which the Congress government had put no effort for recovery, he alleged. An amount of Rs 19.75 crore remains payable and the department has given such taxpayers deadlines to pay up the amounts.
