Govt yet to notify head for Commexes’ CTT deposits

MUMBAI: Commodity exchanges have collected around Rs 80 crore through transaction tax from six commodity futures bourses since the levy was introduced from July 1. However, the commexes have not been able to deposit the funds with banks as the government has failed to notify them of the account under which the tax has to be collected.

A senior official of a commex told ET that the exchange had collected the tax but could not deposit the same with banks, which were as yet “uninformed” about the account under which the tax was to be collected.

“We have to deposit CTT on the seventh of a month for the preceding month, but have not been able to deposit the same with the banks. I guess this is just an initial hiccup and will be smoothened out,” he said.

The introduction of a levy at Rs 10 per lakh of business was imposed on sellers of non-farm futures like gold, silver, crude, etc, by finance minister P Chidambaram in the Budget for FY14. In the notification on CTT issued subsequently, items processed from agri products like sugar and soya oil were also brought under its ambit.

The highest payer of CTT is MCX, which, according to ET’s calculation, stands at around Rs 75 crore. This is followed by agri bourse NCDEX (Rs 2 crore), CWC co-founded NMCE, Kotak-promoted Ace, RADA anchored ICEX and recently launched UCX that has been promoted by Commex Technologies.

At around Rs 80 crore a month, CTT worth Rs 960 crore can be collected annually, which pales in comparison with an average Rs 5,000-7,000-crore securities transaction tax collected from exchanges like NSE and BSE.

Despite several representations made by commexes against the tax, the governement imposed the levy on the ground that large amount of speculative activity was being carried out on the bourses with hardly any delivery taking place.