DPIIT weighs options for more tax sops to startups

New Delhi: The revenue department and DPIIT are working together to see what more relaxations can be given to startups under direct and indirect tax regime with a view to promote budding entrepreneurs, a top government official said on Saturday.

Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Guruprasad Mohapatra said that they will be submitting a comprehensive vision document for startups to the Cabinet, which has proposed series of steps.

Talking about the host of measures on which they are working, he said the DPIIT will be extending more funds this year to startups under the Fund of Funds scheme. It has provided over Rs 1,000 crore last year.

"Right now the taxation team of department of revenue and startup India team from DPIIT are working together to see what further relaxations can be given in the direct and the indirect tax regime. We are also trying to provide marketing support to those startups who are into manufacturing by providing them space under the public procurement scheme of the central government," Mohapatra said.

He was speaking at Rajasthan STRIDE virtual conclave, which was organised by Secretary in the Department of Science and Technology, Government of Rajasthan Mugdha Sinha.

Mohapatra said the key elements of the startup India vision documents include increasing Fund of Funds, seed money scheme, credit guarantee scheme, and making it mandatory for all departments to promote incubators and hand-hold startups. "What we are trying to do is to make things simpler for them. We are now thinking to start a seed money kind of a concept for those startups who come from a ideation stage to a proof of concept stage," he said.

The DPIIT will very soon put a draft ecommerce policy in the public domain to seek views and comments.

Mohapatra said the ecommerce is a fast emerging sector and it is difficult to predict where it will go in the next couple of years. The country do not have e-commerce policy and now the department is currently working on this, he added.

The government in February last year had already released a draft national e-commerce policy, proposing setting up a legal and technological framework for restrictions on cross-border data flow and also laid out conditions for businesses regarding collection or processing of sensitive data locally and storing it abroad.

Several foreign e-commerce firms have raised concerns over some points in the draft pertaining to data. The secretary said that after releasing of the draft in February 2019, general elections happened and also lot of issues came up in the draft policy .

It is now recognised that the country should have a definite, clear, and coherent policy, which is keeping in tune with the requirement of the society and service providers, he noted.