‘Earners’ to fund CM’s sops
Revenue targets raised; departments told to plug loopholes
The state government has fixed higher targets for revenue earning departments to get funding for the slew of sops announced by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao over the past few months.
Though the commercial taxes, Excise, stamps and registrations and transport departments have been witnessing over 15 per cent growth year after year, the government feels that there are still ‘leakages’ in tax collections which, if plugged, could take the growth rate over the 20 per cent mark easily.
The new sops declared by the CM have already imposed a burden of over `10,000 crore this year, especially increase of salaries to various sections, BPL home loan waiver scheme, purchase of 40 lakh sheep and extending social security pensions to single women and also bidi workers.
Another `9,000 crore is required from next year to provide financial assistance of `8,000 per acre per year to farmers towards crop investment subsidy scheme that will put more pressure on state finances.
The state’s own tax revenue was just `39,975 crore in 2015-16. In Budget2016-17, the target was raised to `54,870 crore, but later revised to `50,126 crore.
However, in the 2017-18 Budget, the target has been further raised to `62,619 crore.
Of this, commercial taxes department has been set a target of 74.3 per cent share tax collection, while the Excise department was set a target of 14.4 per cent, transport 4.8 per cent and other sectors 1.8 per cent.
With GST expected to come into force from July 1, the government hopes to get higher tax collection with increase tax compliance in the new regime.
“We have set a target of achieving `1.13 lakh total revenue receipts for this year. Of this, state’s own tax revenue is `62,619 crore. This would not be sufficient to meet increased demand for funds on account of new sops being announced by CM. We have raised the target to `70,000 crore and asked all revenue earning departments to plug leakages in tax collections to achieve the enhanced target,” said official sources in finance department.
The officials have pinned their hopes on higher tax collection on account of GST this year.
“GST will increase tax net and tax compliance. We are hopeful of achieving an additional `7,000 crore of own tax revenue this year,” they added.