The collection of revenue from commercial taxes in the first five months of the current financial year, has increased compared to the same period last year.

The figures upto August 31, 2010 show that the revenue collection is ' 99.49 crore compared to last year's ' 87.46 crore for the same period. Commercial tax revenue consists of VAT (value added tax), entry tax, luxury tax and entertainment tax. The bulk of it comes from VAT collection. Central sales tax was only ' 620.65 lakh while state sales tax/VAT collection was ' 77.36 crore.

The entertainment tax collection for the first five months was ' 3.05 crore compared to last year's 2.30 cr while the luxuy tax has also gone up this time.

In what is seen as a good sign of inflow of tourists during monsoon season, the luxury tax figures have almost doubled. Last year it was ' 2.46 crore and till August end it was ' 5.34 crore. Last year, the tourism season was quite bad and this was reflected in the luxury tax collection.

In fact, the two months when Goa received heavy rains, the number of tourists who visited Goa was relatively high. Luxury tax receipts are almost double for the two months compared to last year's.

In the last financial year, the total revenue collection by the commercial taxes department was nearly ' 1400 crore.