the goan I network
PANAJI
The State Government’s Goods-and-Services-Tax (GST) collections grew at an appreciable rate in February and January because the Commercial Taxes Department started tracking down the businessmen, who were paying lesser tax than their actual
tax liability.
Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Dipak M. Bandekar, said, “We are getting reports on mis-matches when we tally the purchases of a businessman with the sales of those businessmen from whom he had made purchases. In case we find a mis-match, we realize that some of the businessmen are not disclosing right information. We send them notices to pay the actual GST liability.”
The government collected Rs 234.3 crore from GST (including SGST and IGST both) in February 2019, which was 28.6% more than Rs 182.2 crore collected in February 2018. In January 2019, GST collections stood at Rs 219.3 crore, which was 14.7% more than Rs 191.2 crore collected in January 2018.
The defaulting businessmen, who had been tracked down by the government, are those, who had paid lesser GST than their actual tax obligation in the previous months. When the government figured out the mis-matches, most of them ended up paying the remaining amount to fulfil their GST obligation.
In case a businessman doesn’t show any sales after making a bulk purchase, even in that case the government gets information about him and a notice is sent to him to make GST payment. Such checks and balances are helping the government in finding out businessmen, who were defaulting on tax payments.
The growth in GST collection bodes well for the government because it was struggling to grow its tax revenue ever since GST was rolled out in July 2017. Subsequently, GST Council under the Central Government had also reduced tax rate on several products and services making it really difficult for the State Government to grow its tax collections.
