Revenue collection from sales tax, excise register shortfall

A Correspondent

Hailakandi, April 19: Hailakandi district registered a collection of Rs.6.59 crore from sales tax for the financial year 2017-18, a drop of 42.57 per cent. Superintendent of Taxes, Hailakandi, LC Singha disclosed that against the target of Rs.8.28 crore, tax collection has been Rs.6.59 crore, thus achieving 79.55 per cent of the total. Of the total revenue collection, Rs.87.81 lakh has been from tea gardens and Rs.5.71 crore from other taxes. The tax collection from Hindustan Paper Corporation’s Cachar Paper Mill at Panchgram was nil due to closure of the mill for two years.

 Singha said the shortfall in tax collection had been primarily due to non-reflection of Goods and Services Tax (GST). He exuded optimism that once GST was reflected, the revenue would exceed last year’s tax collection of Rs.15.48 crore. He said switching over to a new tax regime online, low-level of awareness for filing GST return, tax return filing problems faced by small businessmen and small wholesalers and even dealers like growing compliance besides technical as well as compliance issues, the inability of GSTN network to handle large volume of e-way bill requests have all in a way contributed to low mobilization of revenue. “Once everything falls in place, tax mobilization will be on the higher side,” Singha added.

 Revenue collection by the Excise Department has recorded a slight fall. Around Rs 1.02 crore had been raised against a target of Rs.1.03 crore. Attributing the marginal dip due to non-deposit of taxes by the retailers since last December, Superintendent of Excise, Hailakandi, Gauranga Choudhury said once the taxes were reflected, the revenue collection would surpass the target. Since last December the retailers here were depositing the taxes at the Office of Superintendent of Excise, Silchar. Hailakandi does not have IMFL wholesalers or bonded warehouse due to which the retailers lift the products from Silchar.

 District Transport Office, Hailakandi has surpassed the revenue target for the last fiscal. A total of Rs.5.99 crore has been generated against the target of Rs.5.81 crore, thus registering a three per cent increase. Of the total collections, MV tax from commercial vehicles accounted for Rs.2.45 crore and Rs.1.85 crore from private vehicles, Rs.1.12 crore from MV fees and Rs.19 lakh from arrear MV tax.