Revenue (commercial taxes and excise) principal secretary Somesh Kumar on Tuesday stressed the need for realigning the policies relating to commercial taxes and allied departments in the light of introduction of the Goods and Services Tax.
The department had commenced exercise on studying different aspects of the new tax regime so as to ensure that more industries came to the State after the biggest tax reform had been put in place. Introduction of the new regime had removed disparities in tax structure hitherto existing in different States.
“Much has to be done in respect of data clearing, data mining and data analytics after the introduction of the GST,” he said. Mr. Somesh Kumar was speaking at an interactive session with employees of the State Secretariat on the GST. He said the new tax regime had been introduced with a view to ensuring decline in inflation, improving ease of doing business and bringing down “black transactions”.
He said of the 340 items listed under the GST, prices of 88 per cent of items had come down following the introduction of the new regime while there was marginal hike in the remaining 12 per cent. With the GST regime ushering in online transactions bringing down human interface, the department had collaborated with the IIIT Hyderabad to study different facets of the online registration and reporting systems.
He explained the officials that Telangana State, being a consumer oriented State rather than a manufacturing hub, the new regime was expected to bring in more revenues.