Finance minister convenes meeting with Trade & Taxes officials ahead of Budget

New Delhi: Ahead of presenting the Budget for Delhi, Finance Minister Kailash Gahlot on Friday convened a meeting with senior officials of the department of Trade & Taxes. He reviewed the Budget preparations and discussed measures to promote trade in Delhi. He also analysed the efforts being made to augment revenue from tax collection in Delhi.

In a statement, Finance Minister Gahlot said, “The Trade and Taxes department plays an important role in the government. The revenue collections of GST and VAT combined was more than Rs 27,000 crore in 2021-22 while this year we expect remarkable growth in the collection. Tax evasion is a big problem in addition to tax defaulting, in any state. Under the leadership of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the government wants to have a transparent system and is continuously working on identifying defaulters. Regular meetings with the market and trade associations are happening through outreach camps to reduce such problems.”

Till February 2023, a total of Rs 31,462.62 crore in taxes were collected, including Rs 26,096.79 crore from GST and Rs 5,365.83 crores from VAT. The total tax collected from petroleum products in 2022-2023 was Rs 4,169.18 crore whereas in 2021-2022, it was Rs 3,739.41 crore.

As per the government statement, in order to augment revenue from taxes in Delhi, the state government identifies and takes regular action against tax defaulters. Also, from time to time, the government does mandatory field verification of suspicious taxpayers and initiates necessary action as per the DGST Act, 2017. Meetings with market and trade associations through outreach camps are organized regularly to sensitize them about the latest notifications, circulars, amended provisions of DGST, the benefits of tax-paying and the repercussions of tax evasion. Their grievances are also addressed during these outreach camps.

Delhi is the third state in the country to implement the Document Identification Number (DIN) in the indirect tax administration. The department informed the Minister that they are collating all the data (both offline & online) of pending recovery cases since 2005. They are also sending text messages to the taxpayers as a reminder to deposit the tax. At the zonal level, the department is regularly monitoring the disposal of recovery cases. The department is also in the process of developing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for effective action on defaulters. Once implemented, it will prevent revenue leakages and hence augment revenue collection. It will also increase return-filing compliance and ensure action on the tax defaulters.