Dear Mr Sachin,
The WCT provisions are under VAT and is a State matter. Normally the Maharastra party is not required to charge WCT from the Punjab party but in some States, the dealers are required to pay VAT on the purchases made from the unregistered dealers. Since Maharastra party is not registered under Punjab VAT hence the Punjab party shall be laible to pay the tax that is why they are allowing the Maharstra party to charge the WCT in the bill being an additional cost to the Maharstra party. Even you may include this cost into the price. Now the Punjab party shall deduct the WCT from the bills and shall deposit with the Punjab Govt.
However the main issue is the practicle point that how the Maharastra party shall bring the goods into Punjab from outside Punjab being an unregistred dealer? In case the entire purchases to be made by the Maharastra party are from within Punjan then it has to pay the local VAT but being unregistered dealer can not avail the input vat credit and this amount shall un-necessarily becomes a cost to everyone.
In case you would like to avoid the registration in Punjab then the practicle way out may be:-
1. Negotiate the full project cost.
2. Get the purchases invoiced on the Punjab party directly for the purchases made within Punjab and the Punjab party may avail the VAT credit.
3. Get the inter state purchases directly invoiced on the Punjab party from suppliers other than you on 2% tax which would have been factored into the cost any way.
4. Invoive your supplies directly on the Punjab party from Maharastra on 2% tax.
5. The balance amount is your profit and labour part (1-2-3-4) and invoice it from maharastra and charge the applicable service tax. (check the party status/constitution and the reverse charge mechanism). There shall be no WCT but only Income tax TDS.
Thanks
S.R. Bansal