Tamil Nadu Govt Targets 20% Tax Revenue Growth to Fund Welfare Schemes

The Tamil Nadu government has set a target of 20% growth for the commercial tax department in the current financial year. The expenditure is set to increase for the government in the present financial year due to the announcement of various welfare schemes. So, the government wants to lower the revenue deficit, and market borrowing, and also fund the welfare schemes.

According to the Reserve Bank of India’s data, Tamil Nadu has borrowed Rs 65,722 crore from the markets in 2022-23. Tamil Nadu’s borrowing is the highest among all other states, and stands first in terms of borrowing continuously for three years.

“Chief Minister MK Stalin in a recent meeting asked us to increase the tax revenue as the government announced Rs 1,000 every month to women heads of households, providing breakfast to students in government schools, providing free ride in government buses for women, and other schemes. For all these schemes, we need funds and the state has only one source to increase its revenue and that is through tax revenue,” said a senior official.

The state government gets its revenue from GST, Value Added Tax, stamp and registration. Out of this, it is only from GST that the government hopes to increase its revenue. “We want to plug all the leakages in GST collections. There are several ways and means to avoid GST, and with the data from various sources we are trying to plug the leakages,” said the official.

Within GST, states get revenue from State GST, Inter-State GST (IGST), and a share from the Union Government or Centre GST (CGST). “In IGST, traders as well as lorry owners are trying to avoid tax. But the commercial department has started tracking the e-bills and tax payments by a trader. Based on the inputs gathered, we check the trader’s account. This way, we have found that the government has incurred a loss of revenue,” said the official.

The government is also looking at GST payers, who have paid a large amount as tax, as well as traders, who have paid a pittance as tax. “Based on taxpayers’ data, we get information about traders before conducting searches on their premises. Through this, we came to know that a large number of GST payers have avoided tax and have thereby caused a loss to the government revenue,” said the official.

The state government also wants the Centre GST to share details about searches. “The CGST searches premises of various tax assessees for cheating in the name of getting input tax. This is happening within the state but we don’t get any information on the searches. The Centre must share details about searches with the state commercial department,” said the official.