HYDERABAD: Telangana has surpassed its earlier record of total tax collections in a month under Goods and Services Tax (GST), during this April. The total GST collections up to April 24 have been recorded as `3,040 crore, which included SGST, IGST, cess and others which are part of GST. Till the other day, `2,800 crore had been the highest amount the State collected as GST in a month.
"We will collect `100 crore to `200 crore more in the last week of April," Commercial Taxes principal secretary Somesh Kumar told Express on Tuesday.
The combined collections of GST were `2,800 crore per month, but the growth was good in Telangana and the collections crossed `3,040 crore per in April so far. "`3,040 crore includes the Central share of taxes and cess on some items. TS' performance is the best in the country in GST collections," officials sources said.
Further, the Central government too recognised the revenue growth of Telangana. In a recent letter to the State government, Union Finance Secretary Dr Hasmukh Adhia congratulated the State for its impressive performance in the tax collections. In his letter, Adhai said, "As you are aware, the performance of GST collection is improving, of course with some ups and downs. The overall revenue gap in SGST collection for the whole country in July was 28.3 per cent with has come down to 17.9 per cent in March. However, there have been spikes in between in the revenue gap in the month of November, December and February. It is important for all of us to bring down the revenue gap figure steadily with better compliance and better supervision."
"As far as Telangana is concerned, the revenue gap has come down from 27.8 per cent in August to 2.4 per cent in March, 2018, which is much better than the national average. I would like to congratulate Telangana for this and I do hope that very soon Telangana will have no revenue deficit but revenue surplus," he added.
Hasmukh Adhia in his letter to Chief Secretary SK Joshi also sent a graph showing month-wise trend of performance of Telangana vis-a-vis national average in GST collections.
It may be recalled here that Telangana, except for initial two months, never took GST compensation from the Centre.
GO to clear GST doubts
The State government has decided to release a fresh GO to clear the doubts among officials of various departments over the GST in work contracts. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting conducted by Chief Secretary here on Tuesday. For fresh work, the tender value will exclude GST.