|
Sources
in Punjab chief minister’s office told FE here on
Wednesday, “VAT collection in Punjab may further go up
if Centre hikes the minimum support price (MSP) of food
grains”. Punjab has scored record amount of wheat crop
this year and “highest ever paddy procurement” in the
current procurement season.
As
far as growth under VAT is concerned, a remarkable jump
from twenty fourth position in 2006. Sources said the term
slowdown or meltdown was wrong as it has almost no effect
on Punjab.
Sukhbir
Singh Badal, MP from Punjab and president of Shiromani
Akali Dal said the major factors that had led to buoyancy
in VAT collections were “rationalisation of tax
structure or restructuring of tariffs, stoppage of
pilferage and effective tax realisation registration of
more than 15,000 new traders under VAT during the current
fiscal, besides improvement in VAT billing and sustained
efforts in ensuring compliance did the trick.
In
the first six months of 2008-09, VAT collection had gone
up to Rs 3,330.82 crore -- Rs 933.65 crore more than the
collections during the same period last year. The VAT
collection in 2006-07 was Rs 4778.69 crore, of which,
agriculture alone accounted for Rs 592 crore. During the
current fiscal, the contribution of agriculture to
Punjab’s gross revenue would be about Rs 4,300 crore,
the largest contribution by a single sector to the
state’s gross revenue. The current paddy season also
marks Rs 600 crore contributions to VAT collections.
By
the end of November, paddy worth Rs 15,000 crore will be
sold in grain markets in the state, on which 4% VAT would
be collected by the state government. Badal observed that
more than 50% of VAT in Punjab comes from agriculture
which is booming now.
Badal,
however, lamented that the concept of VAT was introduced
to bring uniformity in tax regime but the idea had been
defeated with different VAT rates in different states.
Source
: Financial Express - Bombay, India, dated 20/11/2008
|
