Karan Sehgal
PANAJI
The pan-India slowdown in the sales of automobiles like cars and two-wheelers may end up badly affecting goods and services tax collections in Goa. Commissioner of Commercial Taxes Dipak M Bandekar, said that auto slowdown is a worrisome trend for Goa as well.
Bandekar further said that the mining shutdown has affected the State’s economy and people are increasingly finding it tough to spend money. In such a situation, if auto slowdown continues, Goa may find growing its GST revenue difficult in the months to come. “The government earned Rs 119.44 crore from its share of GST (SGST) and another Rs 61.58 crore from inter-state GST (IGST) in July 2019, which totalled to Rs 181.02 crore. Compared to Rs 164.23 crore GST collected in July 2018, GST revenue was 10.2% up in July 2019,” he said.
In an event Goa does not report at least 14% growth in its GST collections for a month, it gets compensated from the central government to that extent. However, the State must try to grow its GST collections by 14% on its own.
The ongoing financial year, 2019-20, started on a positive note. Goa’s GST collections grew at 18.2% in April 2019 compared to 10% growth in pan-India’s GST collections. Similarly, the State’s GST collections grew by 14.5% growth in May 2019 compared to just 6.67% growth in India’s GST collections.
The trend, however, reversed in June 2019 itself, as Goa’s GST collections declined by 3.9% in that month. Compared to June, the month of July 2019 fared better with 10.2% growth in GST revenue. But going forward, it will become tough to maintain growth if auto slowdown and larger economic slowdown continues in India.
