"VAT major revenue source for the State"
Source: The Sangai Express / DIPR

Imphal, August 03 2016: The Value Added Taxes (VAT) is the maximum revenue earner of the State, Commissioner of Taxes Shailesh Kumar Chourasia said while interacting with media persons at the press conference held at DIPR office premises at Moirangkhom today.

The Commissioner of Taxes highlighted the developmental activities undertaken by various departments of the Government of Manipur.

According to him, the revenue collected under the head VAT and CST (Central Sales Tax) has shown a steady increase over the last seven years and is expected to go up further in the coming years, especially in the likelihood of the Goods and Service Tax being introduced across the country.

In the current year 2015-16, the Department of Taxes, Government of Manipur has so far collected Rs 468.24 crore and the final figure is expected to go up to Rs 480 � 490 crore.

The amount collected in the year 2009-10 under this head was Rs 163.28 crore.

This rose to Rs 395.74 and 432.49 in 2013-14 and 2014-15 respectively.

Compared to VAT and CST, the revenue collected from professional tax was just Rs 20.73 crore showing an increase of just Rs 3.1 crore from the 2010-11 figure of Rs 17.63 crore.

The revenue collected under the head Amusement and Luxury Taxes, as per the figure given by the department, makes the least of the total revenue collected with a mere Rs 0.2991 crore for the year 2015-16 .

One of the major reason for the stagnation of the Amusement and Luxury Taxes, according to the Superintendent of the department, is the discontinuation of screening of Hindi films owing to which many cinema halls have either gone out of business or are in a very bad shape.

Department of Taxes initially operated under the Assam Sales Tax Act, 1947 (as extended to the State of Manipur) and the Manipur (Sale of Motor Spirit and Lubricant) Taxation Act, 1962 which were then replaced by the Manipur Sales Tax (MST) Act, 1990 in the year 1990.On the July 1, 2005, the Manipur Value Added Tax (MVAT) Act, 2004 came into force.

Under the MVAT Act, tax is levied at every points of sale starting from the level of manufacturer to the level of retailer only on the incremental value caused by value addition.

The other Acts and Rules the Department of Taxes administers include the Manipur Professions, Trades, Calling and Employment Taxation Act, 1981 and Rules framed there under the Assam Amusement and Betting Tax Act, 1939 (as extended to Manipur) and Rules framed there under and the Manipur Tax on Luxury (Hotel and Lodging Houses) Act, 2000 .

One of the significant step taken up by the Department of Taxes is the computerization of projects under the Mission Mode Project of Commercial Tax (MMP-CT) financed by the Centre and State in the ratio of 90:10 as part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP.

This, according to the Commissioner Taxes, will bring about transparency and improve efficiency by simplifying tax administration.

This will also improve compliance by the dealers through e-services which will subsequently lead to enhanced revenue collection.

So far, the department has launched e-Registration, e-Return, e-Statutory Forms (F&C forms), e-Way bill and e-Payment of tax.

In addition, e-TDS and e Pay with SBI, which will enable all account holders to pay tax through SBI portal are on the pipeline, Chowrasia informed.

The Commissioner during the interaction was highly optimistic of reaping huge dividends from the implementation of the Goods and Services Taxes (GST) Act which is likely to be passed in the ongoing session of the Parliament.

Once GST is enforced, all the central and state taxes will be subsumed under it making way for a uniform taxation across the country for goods and services utilized.

With the introduction of GST, much greater transparency is expected in tax administration and cascading effect of tax on tax will become a thing of the past.

And most importantly, under GST regime tax revenue from inter-state transaction will be distributed among states in the line of destination principle (i.e.the state in which the goods/services are consumed will get revenue) .

This means Manipur being a consuming State, its revenue in the form of GST will increase manifold since the exporting state will transfer tax credit for all inter-state purchase made from the consuming state.

The press conference was also attended by RK Khurkishor Singh, Assistant Commissioner and Y Indrakumar, Superintendent of Taxes.

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