the goan I network
PANAJI
The Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Dipak M. Bandekar, has confirmed that he has written to the Tourism Department telling them to not release the security deposit paid by the organisers of Timeout festival until the organisers pay the taxes.
The Goan Everyday had written in its February 14 edition on how the organisers of Timeout had vanished because the show-cause notice sent to them by the Commercial Taxes Department had come back without any comment.
Meanwhile, a source has revealed that the organisers had made a security deposit of Rs 1.5 crore with the Tourism Department in the form of post-dated cheques. This means that this deposit can be seized if the organisers don’t pay all taxes due from them to the state government.
Timeout, an electronic-dance-music (EDM) festival took place from December 27 to 29 last year at Vagator. The last day for the organisers to pay the state government’s share of goods-and-services-tax (GST) and value-added-tax (VAT) was January 22.
When the organisers failed to pay the taxes by January 22, the Commercial Taxes Department had sent them a show-cause notice to an address in Ahmedabad in Gujarat. However, this show-cause notice has come back to the Commercial Taxes Department without any comments.
This has shocked the department because typically notices come back with some comment or the other like ‘unclaimed’, etc.
Bandekar further said, “We have now sent a fresh show-cause notice to the organisers of Timeout at a new address in Ahmedabad.”
It is estimated that the organisers of Timeout owe Rs 2.5-3 crores to the Commercial Taxes Department on account of unpaid taxes. But even if their security deposit is seized, it will still fall short of their total tax liability.
