The government's revenue collection from central excise, service tax and customs is likely to fall short by Rs 15,000 crore from the target of Rs 2,68,000 crore set for the current fiscal due to continuation of the stimulus package, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) said today.
The government had reduced the rate of excise duty to 8 per cent from 14 per cent and service tax by 2 per cent as part of the stimulus package given to the industry last year. This, CBEC Chairman V Sridhar said, was bound to impact revenue collections.
"Because of the stimulus package being offered by Centre to the industry...Our collections from excise, customs and service tax will fall short by Rs 15,000 crore against the targeted collections of Rs 2,68,000 crore for the current fiscal," he told reporters here.
CBEC had fixed the target of mobilising revenue from central excise, service tax and customs to the tune of Rs 2,68,000 crore for 2009-10, as was achieved in 2008-09.
Because of the stimulus package, Sridhar said, the target for revenue collections for the year 2009-10 "remained same as the actual collections (Rs 2,68,000 crore) was made in 2008-09".
Sridhar said the collection of indirect taxes was still down by 22 per cent till October 2009 compared with the collections made in the corresponding period of last fiscal.
On the issue of Goods and Services Tax (GST), Sridhar said although there were some issues like Purchase tax on which consensus among states and Centre had not yet been reached, the government was working hard to implement it by the scheduled time.
"At present, we have target to implement GST from April 1, 2010, and we are working hard towards its implementation," he said.
He further said the government was working on a possibility of launching single return for Central GST and State GST in order to facilitate easy filling of returns of tax assessees.
"We are working on it (single return) which will allow the assessee to file returns only once resulting into reducing his interface with offices," he said.
