State registers increase of about Rs 3K crore in GST collection

The state government registered an increase of Rs 3,000 crore in its GST (Goods and Services Tax) collection for the financial year (FY) 2023-24 when it collected Rs 42,000 crore compared to Rs 39,000 crore collected in 202223 FY. Finance department sources said the collections for this year will go upto Rs 61,000 crore if other commercial taxes like sales tax, electricity duty, professional tax is added.

“We have adopted zero tolerance in case of return filing. We have reached out to every single taxpayer, including the trade houses, in an attempt to resolve any issues. The district level officers played a proactive role in this. All possible measures were adopted to increase compliance.

This maintained the trend of healthy growth in our GST collection,” a Finance department official said. The Directorate of Commercial Taxes, West Bengal was getting alerts of bogus companies in pockets of Dum Dum, Hooghly, Howrah, Behala, South 24-Parganas etc. Apart from pan cards, rent receipts of houses, electric bills of businessmen are being used for fake registration. “Our raids, since December 2021, to curb the menace of fake invoices and subsequent registration cancellation of bogus firms every month contributed to our GST collection,” the official said.

It was observed that a good number of GST registrations were done from remote areas of the state which is rather unusual. As per Section 132 of CGST Act 2017, issuance of an invoice without supply of goods or services and wrongful availing or utilisation of Input Tax Credit is a cognisable and non- bailable offense.