21.1 Facilitations of cooperative activities as mentioned in the cooperative laws are:
India
| 21.2 | i. | The cooperative capital share, contribution, or interest of a member, including Reserve Funds, cannot be attached to or sold by any court. (Section 54) |
| ii. | Any shares in a cooperative, any debentures issued by society or interests hereof are, exempted from registration (Instruments Act, Section 57). | |
| iii. | The Government may make donations to the share capital, give loans, guarantee repayment of debenture and interest, and guarantee repayment of share capital dividend. | |
| iv. | Provisions of Companies Act and Monopolies & Restrictive Trade Practices Act are not to apply. | |
Philippines
21.3 Cooperatives not transacting with non-members or the general public are not subject to any kind of government taxes (Article 61). Business done with non-members accumulated cooperative reserves, and undivided net savings of not more than 10 million pesos are exempted from all National City, provincial, municipal or barangay (village) taxes of whatever name and nature. Such cooperatives shall be exempted from customs duties, advance, sales or compensating taxes on their importation of machinery, equipment and share parts. These and many other facilities and exemptions under article 62 are available to Filipino cooperatives.
Sri Lanka
21.4 Under Article 35 cooperatives are exempted from payment of stamp duty, registration fee and some other Government fees. However, Co-operatives are subject to business turnover tax, profit tax, etc., unless the concerned provincial council of the area has granted exemption from such taxes.
Malaysia
21.5 ‘Shares, subscriptions or interest of a cooperative cannot be attached or sold by any court (Article 23). Courts shall not have any jurisdiction on liquidator and the records of a cooperative (Article 78)’.
Fiji
21.6 Shares or interest of a cooperative are not subject to attachment or sale by any court (Article 17). The minister can exempt cooperatives by general or special order from payment of registration fee and stamp duty.
South Korea
21.7 The business and the property of cooperatives and federations shall be exempted from taxes and other public assessment of the state or local autonomous entities except in case of custom duties and commodity tax (Article 8). All the ministers of government shall actively support the business of the cooperatives and federations, and shall provide preferable facilities of the government or public organizations for their use (Article 11,1). The government may grant subsidies necessary for the business operations of the cooperatives and the federation within the annual budget. (Article 11,2). Full payment of both principal and interest on agricultural financial bonds shall be guaranteed by the Government (Article 157).
Japan
21.8 The amount equivalent to the surplus dividends which are paid by a cooperative in proportion to the rate at which its business is utilized shall, in accordance with the provision of the corporate tax, be counted as the amount of loss on the income of the said cooperative for each business year (Article 6). The Government may subsidize part of the expenditures of the unions required for carrying their business within the budgetary limit of each financial year (Article 73.8).
Nepal
21.9 According to Article 38 the Government may guarantee repayment of debentures and charge; no stamp duty and registration fees apply; there is no income tax on business done with members; government may grant full or partial exemption from excise and customs duty on goods produced/exported by a cooperative, by notification.
21.10 It can be seen that most laws provide concessions, facilities and tax exemptions and financial support to the cooperatives. In some cases, these facilities are without strings (Philippines, Japan, Korea, Indonesia) in others provisions are made empowering government to involve/ interfere in the management/business of the cooperatives. The right approach would be that the cooperatives laws should not include provisions of such type which allow government departments to interfere in the management of a cooperative as this would be against the cooperative principles. However, as and when any financial assistance is provided by the government it may laid down its lending terms and then it should be left to the cooperative to accept the assistance or to refuse it.
