BENGALURU: As the state government prepares for the budget, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has encouragingly referred to revenue collection, saying, “Karnataka continues to be the state with the highest growth rate of 30 per cent. This year’s remarkable mop-up is due to measures undertaken for reforms, focused vigilance, recovery in economy and better compliance by taxpayers.
This augmentation will allow the government to present a better budget this year.’’ Karnataka, with Rs 1,01,489 crore annual collection, compared to Rs 77,888 crore last year, is the second highest revenue generating state after Maharashtra. The commercial taxes department has been the biggest contributor to the budget. Commercial Taxes Commissioner C Shikha, speaking about six steps taken for better revenue augmentation, said,
“In view of the additional collection target given by the state government, and compensation guaranteed to the states having come to an end, the Commercial Taxes department devised a plan of action to augment revenue.” The department delegated adjudication powers to assistant commissioners and commercial tax officers, redeployed officers to areas having good revenue potential to ensure opt imum revenue collection.
Another measure involved an elaborate exercise where non-filers were categorised into top, middle and lower categories, based on turnovers of the previous periods, and notices were issued to ensure filing of returns for timely realisation of tax. The department also used IT tools extensively.
“System based analytics was done to identify cases for scrutiny, and notices were issued. IT analytical tools under GST Prime were used for detecting cases having discrepancies,’’ Shikha said. She explained that the department had collected valuable intelligence inputs from various states, used E-waybill analytics and Business Intelligence & Fraud Analytics (BIFA) to identify bogus taxpayers and initiated action to prevent creation of a cartel of fake claims. In addition to this, the department had painstakingly rolled out 25 documentaries to ensure that taxpayers are better informed.