States
are all game to shovel out more taxes making Centre's
tax cake bigger, provided each state gets a decent bite
of it, empowered comittee of states on Vat
chairman Asim K Dasgupta said. Just as Vat shift perked
up corporate tax inflows, the proposed GST (goods and
services tax) could mop up Rs 1 lakh crore of the
reported untaxed black money sloshing around in the
Indian Economy, he said.
As
13th Finance Commission (TFC) is pulling up its socks for its
report in October, a good many of the finance ministers of 20
states are putting their heads together to cajole Vijay Kelkar
panel into giving an effective ear to their fiscal federalism
worries. Casting aside their political hues, finance ministers
from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, West
Bengal, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and
Haryana agreed to take a unified stand on the sore spots in
Centre's fund devolution.
“It’s
a positive sum game. It would serve Centre and states well,:
Dasgupta, who's also West Bengal finance minister, told FE.
But, much would depend on how much revenue-sharing the Centre
is game to do with the states. And the GST rates, should be
ideally the choice of a states’ meet as the Empowered
Committee on Vat, said Kerala finance minister TM Thomas
Isaac, at a seminar on Centre-State financial relations
organised by Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, here.
So
urce
: Financial Express - Bombay, India, dated
07/05/2008
