)
Odisha’s commercial tax kitty expanded 11.56 per cent in the April-December period driven by buoyant collection in segments like sales tax, entry tax and entertainment tax.
Commercial tax collection totalled to Rs 7,953.92 crore till the end of December against Rs 7,129.50 crore in the corresponding period of previous fiscal. The government has targeted to collect commercial tax revenue of Rs 13,176.09 crore in 2013-14. Sales tax grew 12.09 per cent from Rs 5,645.67 crore to Rs 6,328.32 crore. Similarly, entry tax rose 16.87 per cent to Rs 1,039.02 crore from Rs 889.04 crore in the year-ago period.
However, collection of Central sales tax (CST) declined 3.59 per cent from Rs 499.51 crore to Rs 481.58 crore. CST revenue has suffered mainly due to the prevailing curbs on inter-state movement of iron ore. Through its resolution dated December 5 2012, the state steel & mines department had imposed a special condition, making it mandatory for mine lessees, without end-use plants, to sell at least 50 per cent of their extracted iron ore to state based consuming industries.
Professional tax went up 8.33 per cent from Rs 88.44 crore to Rs 95.80 crore. Earnings under entertainment tax and luxury tax surged 34.53 per cent to Rs 9.18 crore from Rs 6.82 crore.
Commercial tax collection for December alone stood at Rs 928.33 crore, a growth of 5.02 per cent over Rs 883.99 crore recorded in the same month of 2012.
