The government of West Bengal has recently imposed a tax on the entry of goods into the local areas of the State. According to the Finance Minister, this will help meet 'cost for facilitating trade and industry in the State'. Many States impose entry tax on goods coming into their areas of jurisdiction. Entry Tax is imposed by States under the provisions of Entry 52 of the State List and Article 304 of the Indian Constitution. These read as under: Entry 52, List II of the Seventh Schedule (State List) “Taxes on the entry of goods into a local area for consumption, use or sale therein.” Article 304: Restriction on trade, commerce and intercourse among States "Notwithstanding anything in article 301 or article 303, the Legislature of a State may by law – (a) impose on goods imported from other States or the Union territories any tax to which similar goods manufactured or produced in that State are subject, so, however, as not to discriminate between goods so imported and goods so manufactured or produced; and (b) impose such reasonable restrictions on the freedom of trade, commerce or intercourse with or within that State as may be required in the public interest: Provided that no Bill or amendment for the purposes of clause (b) shall be introduced or moved in the Legislature of a State without the previous sanction of the President." Are there any restrictions to the power of States to impose entry taxes? The use of the words 'so, however, as not to discriminate ' and 'reasonable restrictions' in the above articles constrain the power of States to some extent. Several petitions challenging the imposition of entry taxes have been filed before courts. In 2008, the Supreme Court has referred the entry tax issue to a larger bench. This case is currently pending. What are the arguments in favour and against the imposition of such taxes? Arguments in favour of entry tax
Arguments against entry tax
In addition to the above, it can also be said that an entry tax goes against the principle envisaged under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. The GST aims to create a common market throughout India without any taxes on inter-state movement of goods. A Constitutional Amendment Bill to facilitate the implementation of GST is currently pending in Parliament.
We need your ideas and inputs. Ideas on how we can inform many more people who are interested in policy about what they can access on the PRS website. The mission of PRS is to strengthen the legislative process by making it better informed, more transparent and participatory. The statement has three important components: (a) Better informed: This implies that legislators and citizens need to be better informed about the implications of legislation. For us in PRS, this implies producing easy-to-understand non-partisan analysis that can be made available to MPs and citizens. This also includes our continual efforts to personally brief MPs and political parties on the details and implications of each Bill. (b) Transparent: We mean that all proceedings of Parliament and the work of MPs in Parliament should be easily accessible to citizens. In an operational sense, this includes the effort we put into creating the Bill Track section on our website where every Bill that is pending in Parliament can be accessed, and the current status of the Bill can be tracked. It also includes the MP Track section in which we have up-to-date information about the engagement levels of MPs in Parliament. We also have a twitter page www.twitter.com/prslegislative and a Facebook presence. (c) Participatory: Which simply means that once citizens know the information, and would like to articulate a point of view, they should reach out to policy makers and get their point of view across to them. To promote this, we have had a number of workshops with NGOs and have produced a primer on "Engaging with Policy Makers". These are just some examples of what we are doing in each of these three areas. Our website has much more information. But we are increasingly of the view that we need to reach out many more people who are interested in policy -- even if it is sector specific. We would be grateful for any ideas that you might have, which you can post as responses to this post. If you also have specific ideas on what you like on our website and what can be better, do let us know. Thanks, in advance.
