Centre Weighs Wider GST Base, States Suggest Using Data From Other Agencies

Widening the tax base and increasing the pool of payees has been an ongoing effort by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes. On the back of economic recovery on a YoY basis and the measures taken by the ,council to better compliance, the gross monthly collections have remained above Rs 1.4 lakh crore consistently for the last 9 months

This buoyant GST revenue collection starting from January to November 2022 has established a new base line for monthly revenue collections.

Speaking at the press conference after the 48th GST Council Meet, the Union Finance Minister noted that the centre and states are concerned about widening the tax base and that there should be a widening at every level.

Speaking on the subject, Vivek Johri, CBIC Chairman told reporters at the sideline that the centre received suggestions from states on increasing the tax pool where they referred to some of the pilots they have been working on.

Johri noted that states sought for a more robust use of data from other agencies for this purpose. He explained that the state of Maharashtra proposed property tax based data verification; Madhya Pradesh suggested cross-verification through discom/power consumption data and the state of Gujarat offered the suggestion to look at Pan-based linkage to compile the tax pool.

While widening of the tax base seems like the next iteration of the department's efforts towards better compliance and widening the tax base, it comes with its own word of caution.

Abhishek A Rastogi, founder of Rastogi Chambers told BQ Prime that while the use of AI and multiple sources for data collection would be good, it must not be misused.

The department must be mindful of the notices that are sent so that taxpayers don't feel harrassed and ligitations don't pile up, he said.