the goan I network
PANAJI
In what can be termed as a huge relief, the State government has received Rs 252 crore from the Centre on account of shortfall in its Goods-and-Services-Tax (GST) collections for the months of August and September 2019.
Under the GST regime, if a State government’s GST collections do not grow by a prescribed rate, then the Central Government should give it compensation. It is on these grounds that Goa Government has received Rs 252 crore compensation from the Central Government.
Throughout this year, the State Government has kept on borrowing to meet its financial obligations. Sources informed that the government has been borrowing around Rs 100 crore every month this financial year.
It is in this context that the compensation amount will bring some relief to the State government. Sources further revealed that several States were really anxious because there was a delay on the Central government’s part to give them compensation.
It was also informed that few non-BJP ruled states had threatened to take the Central Government to the Supreme Court (SC) due to delay in getting the compensation related to GST.
However now, the Central Government has released Rs 35,298 crore from compensation cess to several states on account of shortfall in their GST collections.
The next GST Council meeting is scheduled on December 18 in New Delhi. All the observers are curious to see what the council will do with GST rates because that will determine how the GST collections of all the state governments will perform.
In the previous council meeting, the tax rates on hotel industry were slashed by a huge margin, which has badly affected Goa government’s GST collections. In that meeting, GST rate was reduced from 28% to 18% for hotels charging per day tariff of more than Rs 7,500.
Interestingly, Goa is yet to receive Rs 230 crore from the Central government as compensation for shortfall in its GST collections in October and November.
Goa government earned Rs 204.5 crore in November 2019 and Rs 163.9 crore in October 2019 from GST. The fact that it is due to receive Rs 230 crore as GST compensation from the Central Government shows the significance of the compensation amount.
