Bihar, Delhi VAT revenues rise 30 pc, 28 pc

New Delhi, Apr 4: Bihar incurred a 30 per cent increase in its VAT revenues for fiscal 2006-07 at Rs 3,000 crore as compared to Rs 2,400 crore during the last fiscal, while Delhi's revenues went up 28 per cent at Rs 7,600 crore.

Total registered traders in Bihar were 1,61,000 three years ago which subsequently rose to 1,86,000 in 2005-06 and 1,96,000 in 06-07, Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, said at an Assocham conference here today.

Mr Modi, who is also the Finance Minister of Bihar, added that only 40 per cent of them file their return and payed proper tax, while remaining 60 per cent neither file tax return nor pay their obligatory taxes.

Despite, revenue collections through VAT have jumped up which happened because of the nature of modified VAT system though complexities are still involved their, lamented Mr Modi.

He suggested all state Finance Ministers and members of Empowered Committee should have consensus with political approvals from major political parties so that instead of single national VAT or GST, a two-tier GST should be executed from April 1, 2010.

Mr Modi also said GST initially would also face opposition and resistence just as execution of VAT had turned out to be gigantic task for Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

Like VAT resulted for higher revenue collections countrywide, national VAT and Goods and Service Tax (GST) will also prove a boom for the country, concluded Mr Modi.

Principal Secretary Finance Department Delhi Government V V Bhat lamented VAT procedures are still cumbersome and these need to be simplified with bringing about uniformity in their slabs so that tax collections from VAT further multiply with putting in place proper format for all VAT related firms.

UNI