Centre working on property, discoms data sharing to widen GST payer base

He said a pilot project on data sharing with discoms is ongoing in Madhya Pradesh, while Gujarat is undertaking a pilot on PAN-based linkage of businesses

The Centre and states are working out strategies to widen taxpayer base under GST and have started pilot projects on sharing of data with discoms and property tax details to identify non-GST registered businesses.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) chief Vivek Johri said a pilot project on data sharing with discoms is ongoing in Madhya Pradesh, while Gujarat is undertaking a pilot on PAN-based linkage of businesses. Maharashtra is doing a pilot on sharing property tax data and geo tagging businesses and linking with their property.

"We are working out (a) strategy, we are discussing with states. Widening GST base would mean we have to see taxpayers who ought to be in tax net are they there or not. What we are looking at is robust data from all agencies," Johri told reporters here.

 

Explaning how the data sharing with power distribution companies or discoms would work, Johri said the department would match data base to see who are electricity consumers with commercial use connections and not in the tax department data base.

He said the missing link can be detected if the property or electricity connection is registered for commercial use but not registered under Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Currently, there are 1.4 crore businesses registered under GST, which was launched on July 1, 2017.

Briefing reporters after the 48th GST Council meeting on Saturday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the Centre and states would attempt to widen the GST base at every level to increase the tax mop-up, which is averaging about Rs 1.4 lakh crore every month.

"The focus will be on how much all of us are putting effort... to widen the tax base," she said.