Airline CEOs to meet revenue secy tomorrow

New Delhi: The CEOs of all airlines will meet revenue secretary KM Chandrasekhar on Thursday to urge that the high tax structure and withholding tax plaguing the sector be redressed in the Finance Bill. Civil aviation ministry officials will also be accompanying the airline CEOs for the meeting. The issue had not been addressed in Budget, 2007, which had disappointed the industry.
They would be meeting the revenue secretary under the aegis of the aviation lobby group Federation of Indian Airlines.
The Budget has proposed that the list of declared goods under section 14 of the CST Act be amended to cover small aircraft with minimum takeoff mass of less than 40,000 kilograms. With the measure, the airline industry will save around Rs 100 crore, against a saving of almost Rs 1,900 crore if the ATF was brought under the declared goods category for all kinds of aircraft.
The aviation ministry has also been trying to bring ATF as a whole under the declared good category, which would have helped the industry emerge from the red. Of the total expected loss of $500 million by the industry in 2006, almost $450 million are on account of fuel.
25/04/07 Atreyee Dev Roy/Financial Express

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Categories: General Aviation Apr 2007