Indirect tax collection in the State has indicated impressive growth in the first two months of the 2015-16 fiscal. The tax officials are optimistic that the growth in revenue will continue at the last year’s rate.“The net Central Excise Duty collection in the State compared to the last fiscal has seen a growth of more than 49 per cent. It was the highest growth in revenue realisation in the country. This year, it will remain at the similar level of around 50 per cent,” said Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Customs & Service Tax Sushanta Kumar Panda.
On the segment-wise collection of taxes, Panda said the total collection in the month of April in Central Excise was `360.91 crore against last year’s revenue of `177.78 crore. The growth was around 103 per cent. Similarly, there were collections of Customs Duty of `150.27 crore and Service Tax of `200.8 crore during this period. In the last fiscal, the total collection in Central Excise in the country was `4,680 crore against a target of `4,670 crore. The total collections of Customs duty was `1,871.66 crore and Service Tax `1,872.45 crore.
On the performance of Service Tax and Customs Duty collections, Panda said the department could not achieve a higher growth mainly due to nonperformance of the mining sector.The lower assessee base in Odisha also negatively impacted the Service Tax and Customs collection in the State. “We are expecting the assessee base to rise to 1 lakh against the present base of 45,000,” Panda said, adding that the department hopes to bring in more number of assesses into the Service Tax net during this current fiscal.”According to him, he is now targeting semi-urban areas to increase the assessee base. “We are trying to educate the entrepreneurs and trying to include them to the Government processes,” he said. The department has created seven new divisions and 29 new ranges to facilitate revenue collection work and attend to the requirements of assesses, he added.