Bengal sees increase of 25% in GST collection so far this financial year

KOLKATA: The state government has witnessed an increase of around 25 per cent in its GST (Goods and Services Tax) collection in the first eight months (April to November) in the ongoing fiscal in comparison to the corresponding period of 2021-22 fiscal.

According to sources in the state Finance department, the state's GST collection from April to November this fiscal has been over Rs 25,000 crore. The collection during the corresponding period in the financial year 2021-22 was Rs 20,000 crore. The 2021-22 fiscal had witnessed a spurt in GST collection of 23 per cent in comparison to the 2020-21 financial year."We have adopted zero tolerance in case of return filing and most importantly we have reached out to every single taxpayer, including the trade houses, in an attempt to resolve any issue and problems. The district-level officers have also played a proactive role in this area. All possible measures have been adopted to increase compliance. This has contributed to such a healthy growth in our GST collection," a senior official of the state Finance department said.

The official added that the onus has been educating taxpayers regarding coughing up taxes to weed out any sort of misconceptions among them.Inspite of the good GST collection, the menace of fake invoices under GST has been a concern in Bengal as in all other states in the country.

"We are carrying out raids from time to time and cancellation of registration of bogus firms are being executed every month," the official added.

GST registration can be done from anywhere in the country. But it has been witnessed that a good amount of registrations are being done from remote areas of the state which is rather unusual. So often special drives are undertaken and concerned officials travel physically to such places from where such suspicious registrations are being made and accordingly registrations of bogus companies are cancelled. The Directorate of Commercial Taxes, West Bengal had cancelled more than 14,000 such companies in November and December 2021 in a special drive.As per Section 132 of CGST Act 2017, issuance of an invoice without the supply of goods or services and wrongful availing or utilisation of Input Tax Credit is a cognizable and non-bailable offence.