Pilot projects involving data sharing with discoms, sharing of property tax details to identify unregistered businesses, biometric-based Aadhaar authentication and risk-based physical verification of registration applicants are some of the measures being taken by the Centre and states in an attempt to widen the tax base under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.
The Centre and states would attempt to widen the GST base at every level to increase the tax mop-up which is averaging about Rs 1.4 lakh crore every month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. “So the focus will be on how much all of us are putting effort… to widen the tax base,” she said.
Currently, 1.4 crore taxpayers are registered under GST.
The Centre and states have started pilot projects on sharing of data with discoms and property tax details to identify non-GST registered businesses.
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Vivek Johri said a pilot project on data sharing with discoms is ongoing in Madhya Pradesh, while Gujarat is undertaking a pilot on PAN-based linkage of businesses. Maharashtra is doing a pilot on sharing property tax data and geo tagging business and linking with their property.
“We are working out strategy, we are discussing with states. Widening GST base would mean we have to see taxpayers who ought to be in tax net, are they there or not? What we are looking at is robust data from all agencies,” Johri told reporters here.
Explaining how the data sharing with power distribution companies or discoms would work, Johri said the department would match database to see who are electricity consumers with commercial use connections and not in the tax department database. He said the missing link can be detected if the property or electricity connection is registered for commercial use but not registered under GST. An official statement said amendment in GST rules will be undertaken for the proposal to conduct a pilot in Gujarat for biometric-based Aadhaar authentication and risk-based physical verification of registration applicants. “This will help in tackling the menace of fake and fraudulent registrations,” it said.
PAN-linked mobile number and e-mail address (fetched from CBDT database) to be captured and recorded in FORM GST REG-01 and OTP-based verification to be conducted at the time of registration on such PAN-linked mobile number and email address to restrict misuse of PAN of a person by unscrupulous elements without knowledge of the said PAN-holder, it said.
Source: The Indian Express
https://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/centre-states-working-on-property-discoms-data-sharing-to-widen-gst-payer-base-cbic-8330382/
