TN Commercial Taxes dept collects Rs 62k cr revenue in 2015-16

Chennai, Aug 23: Tamil Nadu Commercial Taxes Minister KC Veeramani today said the department has collected a revenue of nearly Rs 62,000 crore in 2015-16 despite economic slowdown and December 2015 floods that affected six districts in the state.

"Despite economic slowdown at global and national levels, continuous reduction of price of petroleum products and unprecedented damage caused to production/business facilities on account of floods in six districts, the commercial taxes department was able to collect a revenue of Rs 61,709.58 crore last year," he informed the state assembly.

The tax collection was better by Rs 1,394.97 crore as compared to 2014-15, he added. The department was able to maintain growth in collection of revenue through better monitoring and strict enforcement against tax evasion, he said.

Veeramani said though global crude prices had fallen over the past two years, the Centre had "increased many times" the excise duty on petroleum fuel. Neighbouring states, like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana had increased sales tax on petroleum products, but Tamil Nadu government had not done so, he said.

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had not revised sales tax on fuel since it would lead to an increase in prices of essential commodities, he said.

On the issue of Central Sales Tax compensation, he said as part of the road map for implementation of Goods and Services tax, CST rate was reduced from 4 per cent to 3 per cent with effect from April 1, 2007, and further brought down to 2 per cent with effect from June 1, 2008.

While the Centre had agreed to compensate states for the revenue losses, it was yet to release over Rs 5,700 crore to Tamil Nadu, he said. Tamil Nadu has filed CST loss compensation claims of Rs 13,227.46 crore for the years 2007-08 to 2012-13, out of which Centre had released Rs 7,655.59 crore, he said.

"The balance sum of Rs 5571.87 crore is yet to be released towards CST loss compensation to Tamil Nadu," he added.

PTI