FAITH urges govt to withdraw TCS hike on packages announced in Finance Bill

Tourism and hospitality body FAITH on Tuesday urged the government to roll back the increase in Tax Collected at Source on overseas tour packages announced in the Finance Bill 2023.

The Finance Bill, through the Budget 2023-24, amended Section 206C of the Income Tax Act levying a higher Tax Collected at Source (TCS) on overseas tour programme packages at 20 per cent from 5 per cent imposed earlier.

According to the Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH), "such a move has put domestic tour operators at a disadvantage as the bookings are moving to foreign tour operators as they are not liable to deduct this charge".

"FAITH board pleads to government not just roll back the TCS rate to 5 per cent, but rather reduce it to 2.5 per cent so that more and more people book their foreign trip through tour operators based in India and the avowed objective of bringing more people into the tax net is also met," it stated.

The body argued that raising of TCS has greatly undermined the business prospects of Indian Tour Operators who were just seeing revival after reeling long under the impact of pandemic.

Nakul Anand, Chairman FAITH said, This is like a bolt from the blue. This will make our domestic tour operators uncompetitive vis a vis the foreign tour operators, they would not just face huge stress but this can potentially lead to business shutdowns and loss of jobs".