the goan I network
PANAJI
The Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Dipak M Bandekar has said that he expects minimum 10 per cent growth in the Goods-and-Services-Tax (GST) collections in the month of October 2018 compared to the previous year’s October.
He emphasized that the expectation of 10% growth is despite the fact that GST rate on restaurants and number of products like refrigerators has been slashed by a huge margin. If not for these reductions, the State Government’s GST collections would have grown at a higher rate.
The growth in tax collections in October is on account of few reasons, as Bandekar said, “Traditionally, the months of July to September are considered to be lean period for Goa’s economy. October onwards trade picks up. Moreover, the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi was in September. The growth in tax collections due to the festival will reflect in October’s numbers.”
It must be realised that GST rate on AC restaurants stood at 18% in October 2017, which was later reduced to 5%. Goa, being a tourism state with high number of restaurants, took a hit in its tax collections due to this move.
In a meeting in July, the GST Council had decreased tax rate from 28% to 18% on a number of white goods including fridges, washing-machines, vacuum cleaners etc. This too had an impact on State’s tax collections.
In spite of these GST rate cuts, the State Government is expecting 10% growth in GST collections in October. One reason for growth in October numbers is also the fact that tourism season has already begun, which will give a boost to trade by bringing a lot of tourists to the state from all around the world.
Bandekar further said, “In August 2018, we earned Rs 108 crore from State Government’s share of GST (SGST), Rs 48 crore from inter-state GST (IGST) and Rs 81 crore from value-added-tax (VAT) on petroleum and liquor. Adding all these numbers, our commercial tax collections stood at Rs 237 crore in August 2018. The collections from these taxes in August 2017 stood at Rs 235 crore.”
“In September 2018, there was a 6.8 per cent growth in commercial tax collections compared to previous year’s September. We earned Rs 267 crore in September 2018 from commercial taxes compared to Rs 250 crore earned in September 2017.”
