Recommends more emphasis on education sector and uniformity of taxation on packaged software.
FTK Technologies Ltd., the developer of unique and comprehensive Indian languages word processor software products, data entry software and online solutions, announces its wish list for Budget 2009.
Rafi Palgi, FTK Executive Manager of FTK Technologies Ltd., says, “Every industry has a lot of expectations from the budget 2009 as the last one year has been very tough for the economy. Last year's impressive budget outlays for education sector had raised the hopes of all those associated with this. We do expect that even this year, the government lives up to its promise by helping education sector and ensuring computer education for all the studies.”
He adds, “First and foremost, a further increase in our budget outlay for education in general as some long-standing and yet unresolved problems still persist. There is also a case for improving the quality of education imparted in the case of government-run schools and colleges. Reform is required at the level of curriculum-development. Also, one needs to ensure that the students actually graduate with at least a minimum level of computer skill that helps them to compete in the job market.”
Rafi says, “For computer education in schools and colleges, government should help them to acquire infrastructure. It could include computer hardware, necessary software, faculty, bandwidth, etc. The government should emphasise and encourage the schools to adopt software which can enable the students to learn and compute in their own language.”
“In order to help the software industry help the education sector there should be further cut in the excise duty from currently 12% to 8%. The double taxation that is prevailing on the packaged software including both excise duty or countervailing duty (CVD) and service tax should be removed and should be only one tax levied on packaged software, preferably excise duty. By abolishing the dual taxation system will actually help the overall price of the software to be cheaper.
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There is confusion on the taxation in the software industry. The packaged software attracts excise duty/CVD, no excise duty/CVD is charged on customised software on media or on license of customised software or even on license of packaged software. When software is downloaded from the internet, it is subject to service tax. The State Governments also levy a VAT on software. Due to various modes of delivery of software, licenses and due to various kinds of software, there is no clarity on the exact taxes to be levied. There needs to be clarity whether software would attract excise duty or service tax, as the same item cannot attract both excise duty/CVD as well as service tax.
About FTK Technologies
FTK Technologies Ltd. is a desktop software company, founded in 2005 which develops software products and online solutions targeted for the Indian market. The company has been promoted by some highly experienced Professionals with the vision of being the first to deliver unique and comprehensive Indian languages word processor and, is a leading provider of Indian languages data entry software solutions. For more information log onto www.lookeys.com