Major GST payers in Telangana hesitant to file returns

Hyderabad: Some of the major tax payers in Telangana are not filing returns regularly, observes Bankey Behari Agrawal, Chief Commissioner of Cust-oms and Central GST, Hyderabad. However, the state recorded considerable progress in terms of refund processing and revenue realisation, he said. The new indirect tax system, Goods and Services Tax (GST), overcame several teething problems and technical glitches during the first year of implementation, added Mr Agrawal.

“We have 25,000 major tax payers in Telan-gana and some of them are also not filing returns regularly. We have already booked 23 cases involving tax evasion of  '43 crore. We have resolved over 700 cases till June. The arrest-threshold for tax evasion is '2 crore as against '1 crore in the pre-GST regime. We hope that the need for exercising such action will not arise,” said Mr Agrawal, while addressing the GST Day celebrations organized at FTAPCCI on Sunday.

The Mr Agrawal further said that consumers can verify whether a shopkeeper is registered under GST or not.

He added, “The count ratio, related to number of returns and processing for refund, and amount ratio, related to refund money, showed considerable growth in Telangana. The refund processing is much higher than in other states. However, the tax compliance in Telangana, during the first nine months since July 2017, was 85 per cent as against the national average of 87 per cent. What prevents us from crossing the national average?”