With little more than a month left for the proposed rollout of the Goods and Services Tax regime, businesses in Karnataka, Gujarat and Chandigarh are likely to be the most-prepared to shift to the new indirect tax system.
According to data accessed by The Hindu , a maximum number of 93.27% of the more than 5.50 lakh taxpayers in the Karnataka have enrolled for GST. However, the numbers are not so encouraging for most of the north-eastern States,and Jammu and Kashmir.
Karnataka is followed by Gujarat, where 90.18% of the nearly 5 lakh taxpayers have enrolled for the new system. In Chandigarh, which has 16,305 tax payers, 91.04% have enrolled for GST, followed by Andhra Pradesh (88.6% of more than 2.29 lakh taxpayers), Maharashtra (87.80% of more than 8 lakh taxpayers) and Tamil Nadu (87.29% of over 6.30 lakh taxpayers). Other States that have more than 80 per cent enrolment for the new system are Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.
However, while in J&K only 4.92% of the more than 58,000 taxpayers have enrolled, for Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, the percentage stands at 28.10% (of 5,476 taxpayers) and 27.92% (of more than 2 lakh taxpayers) respectively.
Manipur has recorded 45.41% of 3,940 taxpayers, Meghalaya (19.39% of 24,296 taxpayers), Mizoram (37.53% of 2,313) and Nagaland (58.22% of 4,847).
Poor Internet connectivity in these States in one of the major hurdles in lower preparedness for the rollout of Goods and Services Tax.
