Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has said that while rolling out a new nationwide goods and services tax (GST), the government has sacrificed the cost of initial revenue in the hope that compliance will be improve in the future. He also said that the organised sector has gained in the process of GST implementation and the improvement is evident in companies’ balance sheets. He noted that industry has welcomed GST as it is expected to streamline manufacturing activity, bring down logistics cost and benefit the balance sheet of companies.
Adhia has stated that the tax payer base has gone up after the GST as well as demonetization move and there has been a concerted effort to make India a tax compliance society. He also said that E-way bill and invoice matching in the new indirect tax regime will help curb evasion. He noted that GST and demonetisation were part of the government’s ‘sustained campaign’ against tax evasion. Adding further, he said that there has been a concerted effort by the government to give a message to the society that let us all become a tax compliant society rather than a tax non-compliant society. He added that they have already seen very good results of these two major reforms.
According to the latest Economic Survey, the GST implementation has increased indirect taxpayer base by more than 50 percent with 34 lakh businesses coming into the tax net. As per the data available, GST collections in July were over Rs 95,000 crore, while in August the figure declined to over Rs 91,000 crore. In September, it was over Rs 92,150 crore, in October it was Rs 83,000 crore, in November it was Rs 80,808 crore and in December it was Rs 86,703 crore.