Despite the Covid-19 pandemic which has severely affected economic activities in the State and the country as a whole and resulted in a negative GDP growth, Commissioner of Tax, Arunkumar Kembhavi informed that Meghalaya has achieved positive revenue growth.
“Tax collections in the year 2020-21 stood at Rs 1526.50 crore (provisional, expected to go up) compared to Rs 1488.37 crore in 2019-20 when GST compensation is not taken into account,” Kembhavi said.
He said if GST compensation is considered, the revenue collection in 2020-21 stands at Rs 1698.87 crore (provisional) compared to Rs 1589.82 crore in 2019-20 showing a positive growth of 6.86%.
“GST revenue collection in the month of March, 2021 stood at Rs 101.75 crore compared to Rs 58.55 crore in March, 2020 showing a phenomenal growth of 73.78%,” he said
According to him, this achievement was possible due to several reforms implemented in the Taxation department and the extra efforts put in by the officials of the department to improve the percentage of return submission by the tax payers, disposal of the assessments and the focus on recovery of arrears especially from bonded warehouses and petrol stations.
The department has also for the first time implemented the Tax Amnesty Scheme through the Meghalaya Settlement of Arrears Act, 2020 which has seen tremendous response from the tax defaulters having dues for several years.
The department also shifted the backend operating system for GST from NIC Meghalaya to the system developed by GSTN, New Delhi to further streamline the GST backend procedures. Kembhavi also said that they are optimistic about achieving a double-digit growth in the financial year 2021-22, he added.
NNN