‘Restore CST Act if Centre cannot compensate State'
The Centre should restore the CST Act if it does not
adequately compensate the State Governments for the loss
in the CST revenue, said Mr C.Ve. Shanmugam, Minister
for Commercial Taxes, Tamil Nadu, at the meeting of the
Empowered Committee of Finance and Taxation Ministers in
New Delhi.
OBJECTION RAISED
According to a copy of the Minister's address released to the media, the State
Government has expressed ‘strong objection' to the Centre's stand on CST
compensation.
The Centre has imposed heavy cuts in compensation due to the State on CST losses
and has ruled out CST compensation from 2011-12 even before implementing the
Goods and Services Tax.
As of 2009-10, a total compensation of more than Rs 1,860 crore is yet to be
released to Tamil Nadu.
In 2010-11, the Centre has imposed heavy cuts in compensation on the grounds
that lower VAT rates have not been hiked to 5 per cent from 4 per cent.
In 2010-11, over Rs 2,000 crore has been cut from the compensation and just Rs
58 crore released.
NEGATIVE LIST
The Tamil Nadu Government was for levy of service tax through a negative list as
long as it does not encroach on the taxation power of the State Governments and
services of socio economic importance to the general public are kept in the
negative list, he said.
Tamil Nadu also sees no need to link taxation of services based on a negative
list and roll out of GST.
VAT REVENUE
The implementation of GST will help the State Governments understand the gain in
revenue provided by the power to levy State-GST on services while sharing the
power to levy taxes on Goods with the Central Government when the GST is rolled
out.
Tamil Nadu's VAT revenue as of January, 2012 has grown 28.31 per cent as
compared with the growth rate 24.06 per cent in the previous year. This increase
is mainly due to the upward revision of VAT rates from the 4 per cent to 12.5
per cent range to 5 per cent to 14.5 per cent with effect from July 12, 2011.
The average growth rate of non-VAT revenue in Tamil Nadu up to January, 2012 was
20.56 per cent.
The Minister also expressed the State Government's objection to airline
companies being allowed to directly import ATF.
The Director General of Foreign Trade has permitted the airlines to directly
import ATF on the ground that its price is high due to high sales tax imposed by
the States.
ATF IMPORTS
This will deprive the State Governments of a significant revenue source. Tamil
Nadu stands to lose more than Rs 240 crore a year if the ATF is imported by the
airlines.
Airlines are losing money due to unreasonable ticket pricing, congestion at
airports and large debt. It is not proper to single out the levy of sales tax by
the States as being only responsible for it.
In fact, levy of sales tax on sale of ATF to smaller aircrafts (with a maximum
takeoff mass of less than 40,000 kg) is restricted to 5 per cent by giving it
the Declared Goods status under the CST Act.
The Empowered Committee should take up the issue strongly with the Centre to
roll back this measure, he said.
