CHENNAI: Of the 10 lakh dealers registered with the commercial taxes department in Tamil Nadu, 90 per cent of all the tax revenue comes from just 33,700 dealers, says a senior commercial taxes official. The biggest challenge for the department is to make the rest of the 9,65,000 odd dealers who contribute just 10% of the remaining tax revenue to pay more tax, the official said.
This comes after State Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan (PTR), during an interview with the TNIE, estimated leakage in the commercial taxes department to be around 40 to 50 per cent and said the State is not getting adequate tax revenue in terms of percentage of the economy (GSDP).
The official said measures are on to address leakages and to collect more taxes from remaining dealers. “We will be looking at wealth at the bottom of the pyramid,” said the official. The tax collection this year, however, was better than the previous year.
This financial year, till February, the goods and service tax collection was Rs 50,003 crore, approximately `4,000 crore more than the tax collection of Rs 46,048 crore for the whole of last year. By the end of this financial year, tax collection is likely to touch Rs 56,000 crore. The primary focus is to mop-up revenue without getting embroiled in legal issues. “If you get too much into enforcement, then your tax conversion rate may be affected,” the official said.
The commercial taxes department has been using decoys to check whether shops issue tax bills to customers. Similarly, the department has also come out with a scheme to reward informers. The intelligence unit of the department is also comparing tax returns of dealers to spot discrepancies, the official said, hoping that the tax collection base could be widened.