Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel Will Get No Tax Relief For AGR Dues

The telecom operators, mainly Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel have been looking hopefully towards any sigh of relief from the government for the AGR dues which they have to pay in the coming month of January 2020. One of the avenues of relief which the telecom companies were expecting was of the tax. However, crashing the hopes of these telecom companies, the Goods and Services Tax council has rejected the request for refund of input tax credit worth Rs 36,000 crore. Sushil Kumar Modi disclosed the information to ETTelecom. The total dues on the telecom sector presently remains at Rs 1.4 lakh crore solely from the latest AGR verdict by the Supreme Court which said that the telecom companies would have to consider the non-core operations as well for calculating the AGR.

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GST Council Turns Down Request for Refund

“The GST Council has not considered this issue, and even if it does come up for consideration, it will not be accepted,” Modi said. He also added that with such a huge amount, there is no question of a refund. It is worth noting that the telecom companies have been requesting the government to issue a refund on their input tax credit or either asking them to adjust the amount against their statutory dues. The telecom companies have already filed plenty of requests with the finance ministry. Currently, the input tax credit which is with the finance ministry already includes Rs 18,000 crore from Reliance Jio, Rs 10,000 crore from Bharti Airtel and around Rs 8,000 crore from Vodafone Idea. The refund that the telecom operators are looking for are on the inputs such as the equipment used to provide telecom services.