The Federation of Coimbatore Industrial Associations and the Associations of Coimbatore have appealed to the Tamil Nadu government for relief from “high” penalties levied by the State roving squad of the Commercial Tax Department on micro and small industries.
The industry associations said that in the last one year, several micro and small-scale industries were served penalty notices under the SGST Act. These were for minor or typographical errors, discrepancies in Input Tax Credit or for HSN code mismatch. Sometimes the penalty went up to 200 % of the GST amount, they said.
Further, the micro units continued to receive the penalty notices online. Most of them filed their returns through a tax practitioner and did not have direct access to the GST website. Hence, the notice should be served by registered post, they said.
If the penalty was not paid on time, the units were slapped with Form 13 which enabled attaching their bank accounts. There should be in-person hearing of the case before the penalty notice is served, said the industries.
The representatives of the Federation of Coimbatore Industrial Associations handed over the memorandum to the Joint Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in Coimbatore on Friday. “The officials promised to convene a meeting soon with the industry associations. They have also asked to call the designated officials if the roving squads levied heavy penalty for minor mistakes,” said J. James, co-ordinator of the Federation.
Published – August 22, 2025 06:47 pm IST
