HYDERABAD: Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Wednesday brought to the notice of the GST Council how Telangana was suffering a loss of Rs 400 crore to Rs 500 crore annually all because the addresses of about 40,000 taxpayers including 1,000 big taxpayers who are living in Telangana continue to be in Andhra Pradesh. The anomaly which occurred post bifurcation of the State in 2014 continues till date, robbing Telangana of taxes due to it legitimately.
As the GST loss due to this reason is quite huge, Harish raised the issue in the 47th GST Council meeting held in Chandigarh.Harish said that due to the State’s bifurcation and non-updation of customer addresses by certain taxpayers, revenue was being diverted to the neighbouring Telugu state and wanted the anomaly rectified.Harish thanked the GST Council for proposing to allow negative values in GSTR 3B returns in the proposed new 3B form.
He requested Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to incorporate the same facility in the current 3B return as well. Thereby, the extent of mistakes in declaring the wrong place of supply in the current year can be rectified. Further, he requested the cooperation of all State officials especially the jurisdiction officers of taxpayers located outside the State in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi for the recovery of IGST which was diverted.The Revenue Secretary assured that a meeting would be conducted with officials of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka to sort out the issue.
‘Expand list of exemptions’
On pruning the list of exemptions pertaining to devices provided for the functions of local bodies, Harish requested Nirmala Sitharaman to expand the list of exemptions or it may burden the local bodies, which are already under financial stress. It was considered and the matter was referred to the fitment committee for detailed study and to come up with a new proposal.Harish also requested that the provisions of the GST Appellate Tribunal be referred to the GoM, as the proposed provisions are cumbersome.
GoM proposals
On the proposals of the Group of Ministers on casinos, horse racing and online gaming, Harish requested to again refer the horse racing proposal back to GoM. The FM agreed.