Centre’s fuel tax too high, not feasible for states to reduce taxes further: Tamil Nadu finance minister Responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s criticism that states, including Tamil Nadu, were not reducing taxes on fuels, state’s finance minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said given that the Union government’s taxes continue to be high, it is neither fair nor feasible for it to expect the state government to reduce the taxes further. The sole, simple and fair approach to improve the situation for all is for the Union government to remove the levy of cesses and surcharges and revert to rates that prevailed in 2014, he said, adding that he hopes that the Union government will heed to this reasonable request in the true spirit of co-operative federalism. The Union government’s levies on petrol have gone up substantially in the past seven years since the prime minister took charge for the first time in 2014. Though the revenue to the Union government has increased manifold, there has not been a matching increase in the revenues to the states. This is because the Union government has increased the cess and surcharge on petrol and diesel while reducing the basic excise duty that is shareable with the states, he said. In 2020-21, the revenue to the Union government from levies on petrol and diesel was at Rs 3,89,622 crore, which was 63% higher than the revenue of Rs 2,39,452 crore in 2019-20. On the other hand, the Tamil Nadu government in 2020-21 received only Rs 837.75 crore as share of the tax devolution from the Union excise duties on petrol and diesel against the Rs 1,163.13 crore received in 2019-20. On November 3, 2021, the Union government announced a tax reduction of Rs 5 per litre on petrol and Rs 10 per litre for diesel. Since Tamil Nadu levies ‘ad valorem’ taxes which are applied after Union taxes, this move by the Union caused an additional loss of about Rs 1,050 crore in annual revenue to Tamil Nadu.
The move had also prompted the country’s largest organised retailer Reliance Retail to step into the value retail segment with Yousta, which was announced on Thursday. Like Intune, Yousta began its operations in Hyderabad, with plans to expand across the country. Intune has three stores – two in Hyderabad and one in Dombivli, near Mumbai, with plans to add another three more outlets in the coming months.
Nair had admitted on a recent earnings call that the apparel segment in general was witnessing moderation and that the value retail foray by Shoppers Stop could help the company tap into the growing trend for affordable fashion and lifestyle products, aiding sales growth.
That was an important statement for Shoppers Stop, which reported a nearly 37% year-on-year drop in net profit to Rs 14.5 crore in the June quarter of FY24, even as revenue grew only 4.8% versus the previous year to nearly Rs 994 crore.
On a yearly basis, the company had last reported a net profit of nearly Rs 114 crore in FY23 after three consecutive years of loss between FY20 and FY22 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. FY23 topline also jumped nearly 60% year-on-year to Rs 4,022 crore, the highest in six years, its results showed.