Finance Ministry Abolishes Large Taxpayer Units

The Finance Ministry has decided to abolish all the Large Taxpayer Units (LTU) from July 1 as they will not be required under the new GST regime. The LTUs was set up in 2006 as single window clearance points. Finance Ministry will transfer all the files lying with LTUs to the GST Commissionerates.

The government will also set up a common adjudicating authority to serve show cause notices that had been issued by LTUs with respect to Central and Service Tax.

A large cell called Large Business Unit (LBU) would be created to coordinate with the jurisdictional Commissioneartes in dealing with legal cases.

LTU

The LTUs are located in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. The first LTU was set up in Bangalore in 2006. The LTUs were functioning as a self-contained tax administration office under the Department of Revenue. Their main function was to act as a single window clearance points for the matters pertaining to central excise, income/corporate tax and service tax.

The main objective behind the establishment of LTU is to reduce tax compliance cost and delays and bringing uniformity in the matters of tax/duty determination.