The Karnataka Commercial Taxes Department has set a tax collection target of ₹42,000 crore for 2014-15.
Addressing presspersons on the sidelines of a meeting with the members of Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) in Mangalore on Wednesday, Ajay Seth, Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Karnataka, said the department is fairly on track in tax collection in the first one-and-half months of the current financial year.
The commercial tax collection was ₹36,773 crore in 2013-14 as against the target of ₹37,000 crore. Seth hoped that the economy would do better during the current financial year.
Earlier, he participated in an interactive meeting on ‘e-uploading of purchase and sales statement’, which was jointly organised by KCCI and the Mangalore branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
He told the members that the Commercial Taxes Department has asked the dealers, whose turnover is ₹50 lakh and above during 2013-14 or whose cumulative total turnover is ₹50 lakh and above in the tax periods of any subsequent year, to electronically upload the purchase and sales statement. This has been done in a move to prepare the State for the GST (goods and services tax) regime.
Stating that the department wants a rule-based, consistent and transparent tax administration, Seth said GST is an efficient system of tax administration.
Stressing on the need for self-regulatory mechanism in auditing, he said e-uploading of purchase and sales statement is a move towards electronic audit.
Giving details of the e-uploading system, Seth said around 10,000 dealers in the State are doing it on a voluntary basis now. The number of such dealers is almost two lakh in neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Kerala, he said.
Rammohan Pai Maroor, Secretary of KCCI, and Shyamala Shenoy, Chairperson of Mangalore branch of ICAI, spoke on the occasion.