The Commercial Tax Department is all set for rationalisation of its circles to optimise distribution of tax payers in each circle.
Accordingly, it has decided to take up transfer of employees in the department after the completion of the exercise and requested the government to extend the deadline for transfers by 15 days.
After reorganisation of districts in Telangana State, the commercial tax circles remained more or less the same at 91 and 12 divisions. There is a wide variation between the number of tax payers and tax potential in the existing circles.
Unequal distribution
The idea has been there for some time but the department waited for the newly introduced Goods and Service Tax regime to stabilise. The proposal is to rationalise the circles and increase the number from 91 to 99 and create two new divisions taking their number to 14, sources told The Hindu.
The composition of circles has been haphazard — some circles have about 9,000 tax payers while there are others with just 300 tax payers in their jurisdiction. Thus the work burden of staff and officers is not uniform and it has been affecting the efficiency of tax collection, sources said.
The rationalisation exercise will not entail closing down existing office or recruitment of additional staff. Existing staff from check posts which have been closed after introduction of GST regime will be utilised and so also staff in some redundant posts will be drafted for the new circles and divisions.
Zonal system
Thus, the rationalisation will not have any financial implications for the department, they added.
According to the proposal, new circles will come up at new districts comprising rural areas such as Sircilla, Asifabad, Vikarabad, Wanaparthy, Nagarkurnool and Bhupalapalli, among others.
The rationalisation process will be in consonance with the existing Presidential Orders and in line with the zonal system. For tax payers too, it will be convenient as they do not have to commute long distance to reach the Circle in case of any grievance.
Department sources said that the move would help to improve revenues as well as compliance because each circle will have manageable number of tax payers to focus on.
There will also be better coordination with the Central Excise for which district is the unit. The CT circles will be co-terminus with the Central excise.
Employees willing
The rationalisation proposal apparently has been discussed with the employees’ associations and they have been positive about it.
The revenue of Commercial Taxes, after the initial hiccups in implementation of GST, has bounced back and it is growing at about 20%. The rationalisation, official sources say, will definitely give a boost to the tax collection.