Punjab Finance, Planning, Excise and Taxation Minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Thursday said that the state’s Taxation Department has improved its performance month-on-month as compared to the previous year during the first eight months of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann led State Government.
“The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection has increased by 24.5 percent during the months of April to November as compared to the same period of 2021-22,” he said.
Cheema said that the total revenue from GST during the first eight months of the fiscal year 2021-22 was Rs 9,612.6 crore, whereas in the current fiscal of 2022-23, total GST collection from April to November was Rs 11,967.76 crore — recording an increase of Rs 2,355.6 crore.
“Taxation Department has achieved these results by emphasizing on the use of technology rather than harassing honest taxpayers through general inspections,” said Cheema.
The Minister said that the Punjab Government has also decided to use the services of GST Prime — the latest data analysis tool created by NIC. “GST Prime would help in the creation of specific data analysis reports on various parameters, and the strictest action would be initiated as per these reports. The Department has also undertaken a lot of activities to guide and facilitate genuine taxpayers so that they can do their business in a better way,” he added.
Cheema added that the Taxation Department has established a new Tax Intelligence Unit (TIU) in the State GST Commissionerate to monitor the GSTN platform for better analysis of the data available over it. He said that the State Government has decided to establish TIU as all services and returns of registered taxpayers are available on the GSTN platform in digital mode and it is creating a lot of data.
Promising to adopt more friendly initiatives to facilitate honest taxpayers during the New Year 2023, Cheema said that the Taxation department has already launched a bilingual WhatsApp Chatbot-cum-helpline number 9160500033 to address the queries and issues of the taxpayers regarding GST. “Many such initiatives are in the pipeline under the policy of easing the delivery of services to the taxpayers besides strengthening the feedback mechanism,” he said.