Tax revenue up by 20 pc post-GST, says Veeramani 

Veeramani, while replying to the House on the demand on grants on Commercial Taxes Department, said, “Commercial Taxes Department has collected a revenue of Rs 87,905.26 crore (which includes GST compensation and IGST settlement) during the year 2018-19 achieving an excess of Rs 14,756.98 crore. This represents a growth rate of 20.17 per cent over the previous year.”

He also said that GST has made taxation structure more transparent and simpler and so large number of traders have registered under the GST. “Till June 30, 2017, there were only 6.38 lakh traders in the state, but now there are more than 10.5 lakh registered traders in the state. The increase is due to transparent and simpler GST tax structure which functions on the principle of one nation one tax,” said Veeramani. He further said that GST is implemented in Tamil Nadu without affecting the revenue of the state. “In 2015-16, the state revenue was 14 per cent from taxes and the state government demanded the Centre to assure that the same amount will be given as compensation on GST implementation. Only after the Centre assured the state to compensate for the revenue losses, the state accepted GST and the Centre is now giving the compensation in phased manner,” said Veeramani.

When KV Sekaran, Polur MLA, asked the Minister the actual pending amount from the Centre under GST, Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar replied that the pending amount is approximately Rs 5,500 crore including the Rs 4,500 IGST compensation.

Digitalisation has increased both the number of registrations and revenue in the state said Minister for Commercial Taxes and Registration Department KC Veeramani on Tuesday in the Assembly.

Veeramani, replying on demand on grants for Registration Department, said, “Registration Department has introduced and executed paperless process in many offices with full-fledged mandatory implementation of online registration system. Due to the digitalisation, 25.73 lakh documents were registered in 2018-19 fetching revenue of Rs 11,071.02 crore.”

“The department has leaped to the collection of of Rs 11,071.02 crore by registering a growth of 21.37 per cent when compared to the previous year,” he said.

He further said that as part of digitalisation, the Registration Department developed STAR 2.0 and it was launched on February 12, last year. The software has enabled people to know their exact status of application. Due to the transparency, the software is highly appreciated by public and the software had bagged state government’s ‘Best Practices Award’ for the year 2018, added Veeramani.

When Veeramani quoted the registration done in previous years, DMK MLA, KV Sekaran of Polur questioned the Minister that in 2006-07 and 2007-08, there were around 25 lakh registrations per year and the total revenue was just Rs 3,407 crore but on contrary the revenue had increased to Rs 11,071 crore when the number of registrations remain the same.

CM K Palaniswami, replied that though the number of registrations were same, the value of properties had gone up.