The state government has informed the empowered committee of state finance ministers that it has posted 15.87 per cent growth in tax collection from non-VAT (value added tax) items in the April-July period of this fiscal.

Collection from non-VAT items like petrol, diesel and liquor rose to Rs 900.81 crore from Rs 777.46 crore recorded in the corresponding period of last fiscal.

At the meeting of empowered committee of state finance ministers on GST (Goods & Service Tax) recently, Odisha finance minister Pradip Kumar Amat said, collection under VAT up to July stood at Rs 2,989.16 crore, 12.5 per cent higher than 2,657.10 crore in the year-ago period.

Amat opposed dual control by both central and state authorities in case of dealers having annual transactions of less than Rs 1.5 crore. The state government is of the view that since the taxable event will be the same, both authorities having power on the same dealer for scrutiny and risk based audit will not be feasible.

The minister pitched for a clear jurisdiction for scrutiny/risk based audit selection. Suitable provision in the State GST (SGST), Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) may be made to give effect to this administrative arrangement, he suggested.

On exempted list of goods under GST, the state government is of the view that this list should be reduced to the minimum. “Exemption should be granted only to goods of local importance. Further, both in case of goods as well as as services, the exempted list should be common for SGST as well as for CGST and should be common for all states,” Amat stated in his address.

Odisha has supported the empowered committee’s views on fixing a threshold of Rs 25 lakh both for SGST and CGST for goods and services.

On the committee’s recommendations on IGST and GST on imports, the state has opined that short payment of tax should not be allowed. Otherwise, there will be problem in disallowing input tax credit (ITC) since there is no measure for apportionment of the short payment amount among the purchasing dealers. The return should be accepted only if tax shown as payable is paid by the dealer.

On dispute resolution mechanism, the state government feels the matter cannot be dealt separately by the Centre and the state. The matter should be dealt either by one government delegating the power to the other or by a committee consisting of tax authorities of both the governments.