Uttar Pradesh, the only major state not to have introduced a legislation for implementation of the value-added tax, is likely to submit its draft legislation to the empowered committee on VAT by December 4.
Uttar Pradesh, along with Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, are the only states, which have not introduced a draft legislation on VAT till now.
The Union government has asked all the state governments to implement VAT from April 2005.
"The state government has informed us that it will submit the draft legislation for our consideration by December 4," informed a senior official of the empowered committee of the state finance ministers on VAT.
The empowered committee on VAT is conferring on the sidelines of a meeting of the state finance ministers with Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday over the issue of service tax.
The empowered committee is expected to review the progress made by the states to bring in necessary legislation to implement VAT. The last meeting of the committee was held earlier this month.
Though Uttar Pradesh had prepared a draft legislation for VAT way back in 2001, it has not been implemented so far.
Committee officials, however, said they were hopeful that the state would begin the process to bring in the legislation soon.
"The two North-Eastern states have sought expertise to bring in the required legislation. The advisor to the finance minister, Parthasarathy Shome, had recently visited the two states to advise them on bringing in the required legislation for VAT," an official said.
The Central government has said it would grant Rs 67 crore (Rs 670 million) to the 13 special category states, including the North-Eastern states, and Jharkhand, Uttaranchal and Jammu and Kashmir this year as financial assistance to implement VAT.
The financial assistance would be used by the states for activities like computerisation, training of staff and for hiring specialists to help draft the legislation for VAT.
The state governments of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Karnataka and Kerala have already asked ICICI Infotech to computerise their tax systems in preparation for the VAT.
