Hyderabad: Finance minister T. Harish Rao raised several issues pertaining to GST concerning Telangana state in the 47th GST Council meeting chaired by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Chandigarh. The minister, along with special chief secretary, finance, K. Ramakrishna Rao, took part in the two-day GST Council meeting which concluded on Wednesday.
Harish brought to the notice of the GST Council about the revenue loss being suffered by the Telangana government on account of bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. He pointed out that several taxpayers in undivided Andhra Pradesh had not updated their customer addresses even after the bifurcation of the state due to which the tax revenues meant for Telangana state were being diverted to Andhra Pradesh. He also brought to the notice a few instances where the records of customer addresses of a few taxpayers were being shown in Telangana but they continued to be treated as customers of Andhra Pradesh.
In this regard, the proposal to allow negative value in GSTR 3b returns in the proposed new 3b form was proposed in the GST Council meeting. Harish thanked the GST Council for this and requested Sitharaman to extend the same facility to current 3b returns. He said this would facilitate the correction of taxpayers’ addresses in records.
He sought the cooperation of the GST Council in recovering the IGST earnings that were diverted to other states. He also sought cooperation of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi with regard to determining jurisdiction of taxpayers residing outside Telangana.
He sought a meeting to be convened with revenue secretaries of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka to resolve these issues.
He sought extension of 'GST exemption list' for local bodies engaged in Swachhta Abhiyan duties on the ground that local bodies were already facing fund crunch and GST on Swachata equipment would lead to further burden on them.
Harish wanted the GST Council to amend the proposed GST appellate rules, which now seemed very confusing, complex and impractical.
With regard to casinos, horse racing and online gaming, the GST Council approved the GoM proposals on casinos in response to the
request made by the Goa government. However, Harish urged the council chairperson to ask GoM to submit a fresh proposal on horse racing, which was accepted in the meeting. The council asked GoM to submit fresh proposals in this regard by July 15.
