Union Budget 2014: Pharma, IT industries seek Large Taxpayer Unit at Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Large pharmaceutical and information technology companies based out of Hyderabad are seeking large taxpayer unit (LTU) facility at Hyderabad to make it India’s sixth LTU for the convenience of payment and claims of all taxes under single roof.

Hyderabad, also known as India’s bulk drugs capital, accounts for a third of country’s pharmaceutical exports and is also ranked the second largest exporter of IT services after Bangalore. The city exports around Rs 90,000 crore of pharmaceutical products and nearly Rs 60,000 crore of IT services.

The southern India city, currently acting as common capital for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, also houses some of the country’s largest infrastructure firms that built a third of India’s road, power, irrigation and airport projects. Prominent among the corporates with headquarters at Hyderabad include Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, GVK, IVRCL, NCC, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Aurobindo Pharma, Divis Labs, Natco Pharma among others.

At present, the country has five LTUs that include Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. These units were set up in 2006-07, primarily aimed at helping the taxpayers have a single window clearance for all tax matters including central excise, income tax, corporate tax and service tax among others.

Equipped with modern facilities and trained manpower, these LTUs are currently assisting the taxpayers in the matters of direct and indirect taxes, duty payments, filing of documents and returns, claims of rebates, refunds and settlement of disputes. All the corporate firms that pay at least Rs 5 crore of service tax and excise duty and Rs10 crore of advance income tax or corporate tax are entitled to avail the services at LTUs.

Pharmaceuticals export promotion council ( Pharmexcil) director general PV Appaji said the council received requests from several large pharmaceutical firms seeking LTU facility at Hyderabad as a part of pre-budget memoranda.

President of Hyderabad software exporters’ association ( Hysea) Ramesh Loganathan said single window facility in the form of LTU at Hyderabad helps several large companies with over Rs 100 crore of revenues in terms of substantial time and efforts in dealing with payment and claims of various taxes.