State collects over Rs 21K cr GST, clocks 11.5% growth from last yr

SOUMITRA NANDI, MP, 3 Nov 2023, Kolkata: The state government witnessed 11.5 per cent growth in GST (Goods and Services Tax) collection in the first six months (April to September ) in the ongoing fiscal in comparison to the corresponding period last year. 

The collection in the first six months of 2023-24 fiscal has been over Rs 21,000 crore compared to Rs 18000 crore during the same period in the 2022-23 fiscal. 

“We have adopted zero tolerance in case of return filing and most importantly we have reached out to every single taxpayer including the trade houses in an attempt to resolve any issue and problems. 

The district-level officers have also played a proactive role in this area. All possible measures have been adopted to increase compliance. 

This has contributed to such a healthy growth in our GST collection,” a senior official of the Finance department said. 

He added that the onus has been on educating taxpayers regarding coughing up taxes to weed out any sort of misconceptions among them. “Our raids since December 2021 to curb the menace of fake invoices and subsequent cancellation of registration of bogus firms that are being executed every month has been a major contributor in our GST collection,” the official said. 

The Directorate of Commercial Taxes, West Bengal has been getting alerts of such bogus companies in certain pockets of Dum Dum, Hooghly, Howrah, Behala, South 24 Parganas etc. Apart from pan cards, rent receipts of houses, electric bills of businessmen are being used for such fake registration. 

The Directorate earlier this year had unearthed the highest amount of GST fraud in the state by arresting two persons from Howrah who had formed 146 shell companies that involved fraud to the tune of Rs 593 crore. 

The fake company had made a turnover of Rs 3410 crore through such fake invoices. GST registration can be done from anywhere in the country. But it has been witnessed that a good amount of registrations are being done from remote areas of the state which is rather unusual. 

As per Section 132 of CGST Act 2017, issuance of an invoice without supply of goods or services and wrongful availing or utilisation of Input Tax Credit is a cognizable and non-bailable offence. 

https://www.millenniumpost.in/bengal/state-collects-over-rs-21k-cr-gst-clocks-115-growth-from-last-yr-539011