Nagpur: The state’s receipts under the
GST regime have gone up by 40% as on June as compared to the same period last year. This comes after including the compensation of over Rs1,500 crore from the central government.
The central compensation is granted to meet shortfall in collection after calculating a targeted 14% growth on the revenue collections of a state as on 2015-16.
If the compensation is excluded, still the revenue growth comes to 20% when compared to the same period last year. Value added tax (VAT), which has been retained on liquor and petroleum products, comes to 32% of the total collections.
According to the data on the progressive collection from March to June this year, the total revenue stands at Rs35,900 crore. Last year, it was Rs25,742 crore for the same period. Till June 2017, the state continued with the VAT regime which was replaced with GST from the next month onwards.
Out of the total collections, state goods and services tax (SGST) collected for the period stands at Rs14,800 crore and integrated goods and services tax (IGST), coming into the state’s kitty is at Rs4,800 crore. The state has collected VAT to the tune of Rs1,1545 crore, the old tax has been continued on liquor and petroleum products, rest includes ad hoc IGST.
A central compensation of Rs1,589 crore has been granted by the centre to make up the shortfall in growth of revenue. The tax collections will have to be beefed in order to do away with dependence on compensation said source.
The total collections without the compensation stands at Rs30567 crore which is higher by Rs5,000 crore as compared to the collections same period last year.
In June alone, the state has netted a revenue of Rs10,317 crore which includes over Rs4,000 crore of VAT.
Sources say, the real test will begin from August onwards. Even as the collections have surpassed the previous year’s tally, there are apprehensions that a major amount may have been evaded. The department needs to start strict measures to ensure compliance. As envisaged originally, there is no system of cross-checking the claims made in the returns.
At present, a trader only files summary returns mentioning sales-purchases and input credit claimed on the tax paid on the purchases. There has to be a system of matching returns with the sellers on other side to confirm whether the input credit claimed on purchases is authentic, said a source.
There is likelihood of claims being inflated. For this, the GST council needs to come up with the proposed new system of filing returns soon. Sources said, strict measures are needed to increase the filing of returns also which is down by 25-30%.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com