Enhanced GST mop-up now a 'new normal': FM

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said taxpayer base has almost doubled to 1.28 crore in four years of rollout of the historic tax reform and the enhanced GST mop up in the recent months should now be the 'new normal'.

In a written message to tax officers on the fourth anniversary of GST rollout, she said implementing any reform of this scale in a large and diverse country like India can be highly challenging, but GST has brought about ease in taxpayer compliance and reduced common man's tax burden.

For eight months in a row, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenues have crossed Rs 1 lakh crore mark and touched a record Rs 1.41 lakh crore in April 2021. "Commendable work has been done in the year gone by both in the area of facilitation and enforcement with numerous cases of fraudulent dealers and ITC being registered. The enhanced revenue collection in recent months should now be the 'new normal'," Sitharaman said. In the last four years, the GST taxpayer base has almost doubled to 1.28 crore from 66.25 lakh. Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur, in his message on GST Day, said in the past year a balance has been struck between trade facilitation and enforcement. The enforcement drive launched by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) since November 2020 has resulted in detecting cases of fake ITC (input tax credit) and evasion of GST of more than Rs 29,000 crore till now, Thakur said. A nationwide GST, which subsumed 17 local levies like excise duty, service tax and value-added tax (VAT) and 13 cesses, was rolled out on July 1, 2017. Expressing satisfaction on overcoming most of the GST implementation challenges, including two waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, the minister also thanked taxpayers for their support in making GST a reality.