Commercial Taxes Division of Visakhapatnam has collected a VAT of Rs.1253.79 crore during 2012-13 as against previous year’s Rs.1,156.82 crore registering a growth rate of 8.41 per cent.
The growth rate in VAT would have exceeded 20 per cent against the State average of 15 per cent had MMTC Limited contributed Rs.205.32 crore it had paid during 2011-12.
“The loss in revenue from MMTC was Rs.87.90 crore as it could pay only Rs.117.42 crore,” Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes T. Siva Sankara Rao told reporters on Monday.
There was shortfall in collection mainly due to supply of gold worth Rs. 200 crore to a leading jewellery firm on credit by MMTC and later the firm getting caught in a scam.
By motivating the officials and periodical monitoring of the tax collection drive, they could overcome a sluggish market and put up a reasonably good show, Mr. Rao said. He said monitoring from the stage of filing cases, demands raised and collection led to revenue contribution of Rs.32.09 crore as against Rs.10.9 crore during previous year.
The department could get Rs.10.5 crore towards entertainment tax, Rs.35.93 crore professional tax and Rs.9.82 crore luxury tax.
Mr. Rao said regular obtaining of returns from dealers, cancelling the unwanted registrations, collection of unpaid taxes, enforcing old arrear demands and allied aspects of work led to realisation of additional revenue of Rs. 55.14 crore against the previous year’s Rs.20 crore. The growth rate achieved on this front is 175 per cent.
He said the division stood first in the State for raising more demand after audit after Panjagutta division.
