HYDERABAD: Cracking the whip on traders for not paying the Value Added Tax (VAT), the Commercial Taxes department on Thursday served notices on around 7,000 defaulters across the state. The tax dues from these traders is around `708 crore.
These traders while filing income tax returns from June 2, 2014 till the advent of Goods and Services Tax (GST) ie June 2017, claimed in their returns that they have to pay certain amount of VAT to the state government. But, as per their disclosure in the returns, they failed to pay VAT to the tune of `708 crore.
In order to augment revenue resources of the state government, the Commercial Taxes department has prepared a list of defaulters. With the help of IIT-Hyderabad, the department has sent around 7,000 electronically-generated notices to the traders on a single day.
“We have prepared Return Balance Module to send the notices to the traders,” said Commercial Taxes department principal secretary Somesh Kumar.
The traders were given seven days’ time to pay the tax, otherwise the department would take action against them. Tax dues of `708 crore in 36 months means tax evasion of `20 crore every month, the officials said.
After the implementation of GST, VAT dealers registered with GST network but failed to pay the tax.
GST payers’ list was not available with the state government and hence the officials could not cross-check. “We have no information about GST payers. But, still we could prepare a list of defaulters with the help of previous VAT details on our own,” Somesh Kumar explained. Sources said the other reason for GST evasion is that there are no stringent penalties for defaulters.
Gst Council Meet On Jan 18
The next GST Council meeting is scheduled on January 18 in New Delhi and the officers’ committee was held in Delhi on Thursday. The state government officials are awaiting the agenda amidst talk that petrol and diesel too will be brought under GST network.