Revenue shortfall: Hold GST Council meet soon, Mitra to Sitharaman

 







Amit Mitra, who is in charge of the West Bengal finance department, has urged the Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to urgently call a meeting of the GST Council to discuss a likely rise in states’ GST compensation need owing to the savage second Covid wave.

“As per the Gol projection, the shortfall was expected to be to the tune of Rs 1,56,164 crore in 2021-22, without taking into consideration the impact of Covid Wave-2. Now, due to Covid Wave-2 and lockdowns, the compensation will be much higher than what was projected earlier. This is undoubtedly deeply distressing,” Mitra wrote to Sitharaman. Under a unique arrangement in FY21, the Centre borrowed Rs 1.1 lakh crore and transferred the amount to states to meet the shortfall in GST compensation cess.

While Mitra expressed apprehension about the rise in shortfall, GST collections in April touched a record high of over Rs 1.41 lakh crore. The GST revenues of April 2021 were 14% higher than Rs 1.23 lakh crore collected in March.

The last GST Council meeting was in October 2020. Mitra wrote: “May I draw your kind attention to para 6 of the ‘Procedure and Conduct of Business Regulations of the Goods and Services Taxes Council’ which provides that the ‘Council shall meet at least once in every quarter of the financial year’. You would agree that not meeting every quarter to discuss vital issues is not in line with the very principle of cooperative federalism.”

While Mitra expressed apprehension about rise in shortfall of GST compensation cess, GST collections in April touched a record high of over Rs 1.41 lakh crore. The GST revenues of April 2021 were 14% higher than Rs 1.23 lakh crore collected in March.

“GST revenues have not only crossed the Rs 1-lakh-crore mark successively for the last seven months but have also shown a steady increase. These are clear indicators of sustained economic recovery during this period. Closer monitoring against fake-billing, deep data analytics using data from multiple sources including GST, income-tax and customs IT systems and effective tax administration have also contributed to the steady increase in tax revenue,” the finance ministry had said.

“Despite the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic affecting several parts of the country, Indian businesses have once again shown remarkable resilience by not only complying with the return filing requirements but also paying their GST dues in a timely manner during the month,” the ministry had added.


Download our App to get knowledge updates: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.gstmitraa
Join Our Telegram Channel for more updates: https://t.me/praveengst

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Centre appeals against ruling on levy of GST on maintenance charges to resident welfare associations

Image
  The Centre has preferred a writ appeal before the Madras High Court against a single judge's order that flat or villa owners paying more than ₹7,500 a month towards maintenance charges to their residents’ welfare associations must pay Goods and Services Tax (GST) at the rate of 18% only for the amount exceeding ₹7,500 and not for the entire monthly contribution. Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and Sathi Kumar Sukumara Kurup on Wednesday allowed an application filed by the Centre to dispense with production of a certified copy of the judgment passed by Justice Anita Sumanth recently and directed the Registry to list the appeal for admission in the usual course. Justice Sumanth had in July this year quashed an order passed by the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) on June 21, 2019 as well as a consequent circular issued by the Department of Revenue under the Union Finance Ministry on July 22, 2019 since both of them had insisted upon collecting GST for entire monthly contribution. The jud...
Read more

Seven key things to know before filing income tax return (ITR) for FY21

Image
  The last date to file income tax return for the financial year 2020-21 has been extended to September 30, 2021. Although there is more than two months left for the deadline to end, it is always recommended to complete the task as soon as possible and not to wait for the last minute. Worth mentioning here is that the income tax department last month launched a new e-filing portal (www.incometax.gov.in) to speed up the processing of tax returns. The I-T department will soon launch a mobile application, having all the features of the new portal. This year taxpayers have to take care of the following changes in the ITR filing process. 1) A new utility named JSON has been launched for filing tax return forms for FY21. At present, only three forms, ITR 1, 2 and 4 have been released. These new forms will import pre-fill data such as personal details, salary income, dividend income, interest income, capital gains and all the information available in Form 26AS. 2) Taxpayers will have the ...
Read more

Income Tax Dept detects ₹350 cr unaccounted cash receipts after raid in Rajkot

Image
  The Income Tax Department carried out a search and seizure operation on a real estate group based in Gujarat's Rajkot and found unaccounted cash receipts in various projects of approximately ₹350 crore, the Finance Ministry said on Friday. The group is among Gujarat’s prominent real estate builders and developers and is actively engaged in real estate, construction and land trading businesses in and around Rajkot. More than 40 premises were covered in the search operation. During the course of operation, many incriminating documents and digital evidences were seized indicating involvement of the group in unaccounted transactions. The IT sleuths found substantial evidence of transactions outside the regular books of accounts, unaccounted cash expenses, cash advances received and interest paid in cash. Evidence of on-money payments in real estate projects-flats, shops and land deals has also been found. Total unaccounted cash receipts in various projects of approximately ₹350 crore...
Read more