Hasty GST roll-out has hit revenues, SMEs: Amit Mitra

New Delhi: "States are suffering from tax shortfall of Rs 39, 111 crore in four months," West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra said at the Annual General Meeting of Ficci here on Thursday. Mentioning the unpreparedness and the consequences of implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) Mitra also avouched that "The GST council earlier calculates tax shortfall of Rs. 55,000 crore in a year but already a shortfall of Rs. 39,111 crore is showing in four months," he mentioned.

"It puts me in deep concern. The September collection is Rs. 95, 131 crore and the October collection plummet by Rs. 12,000 crore which is Rs. 83, 343 crore," the minister further claimed.

Expressing his deep concern over the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Mitra also claimed that there has been a 40 per cent decline in their production country wide in the last four months due to the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST). Mitra also called rolling of 'one nation, one tax' as "ill-prepared" and a "hasty step" by the center.

While addressing the chamber, he mentioned, "I kept on saying during GST council meeting that we are not prepared. In May I chaired meeting with professional on the e-system, where they told me the up-linking of invoices has been failed 30 per cent. 300 crore invoices have to be uplinked per month and the IGST (inter-state trade) has to be sorted out, thirdly, input tax credit has to be sorted out. But the reality is an only invoice of 200 companies in 15-16 states had done and that was in the month of May and the government was pushing to start GST in the 1st of July!"

"The return system has three systems, GSTR1, GSTR2 AND GSTR3. None of them worked successfully, especially the way we wanted it. We did simplified GSTR3(b), and this is where the tax reduction come from," Mitra added further.

The minister and the former DG of FICCI also avouched that state is supposed to be co-operative federalism and there is a constitutional guarantee of compensation.

Further Mitra claimed that still many functions of GST are being done manually. Especially, the refund system because of the unpreparedness. Even the tax revision has also put the industry in glitches. "Even changing the GST rates also create hassles in re-tooling the up-linking system and the software," the minister mentioned.