Indirect tax collections in Andhra Pradesh have gone up by 14 per cent, fetching the government ₹49,640 crore against the target of ₹50,000 crore in 2018-19.
Briefing the media here on Thursday, Chief Commissioner of Central Tax and Customs B Hareram said the indirect tax collections durng the previous year (2017-18) were ₹37,903 crore, including ₹8,088 crore towards GST collected during nine months.
Focused investigations
He said Central Board of Indirect Taxes (CBIC) had employed focused investigations based on data analytics and risk parameters to target defaulters, resulting in revenue augmentation. The Vizag Zone of Central Tax and GST has three commissionerates in Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Tirupati.
During the financial year, GST collections amounted to ₹14,099 crore, customs 9,329 crore, IGST (imports) ₹13,441 crores, central excise ₹12,578 crore and service tax ₹193 crore, adding up to ₹49,640 crore.
The all-India GST collections were ₹11.77 lakh crore against a target of ₹11.44 lakh crore.
Hareram said pro-active steps initiated by the Department to target non-filers of tax returns and taxpayers who filed fake invoices had yielded results. Roughly, eight lakh returns were filed in 2018-19 against only five lakh returns filed in the nine months of 2017-18.
The average return filing percentage was around 80 per cent a month in 2018-19. Two persons engaged in generation of fake invoices and passing on the input tax credit had been arrested by the Director General of GST Intelligence, Visakhapatnam unit.
GST base
He said the GST taxpayer base had gone up from 1.02 lakh in 2017-18 to 1.54 lakh in 2018-19.
Referring to introduction of E-Sanchit facility in import and export clearance, direct port delivery and direct port export, authorised economic operator programme, next generation reforms for ease of doing business and electronic cargo tracking system for Nepal-bound cargo, he said it had evoked a good response in the Visakhapatnam zone.