New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a steep target for the Central Board of Excise and Customs to achieve 3 crore registrations under goods and services tax, two senior finance ministry officials said.
“The prime minister has given a target of bringing 3 crore traders and manufacturers under the indirect tax system, including the small businesses so that they can be brought under the formal system of taxation,” the official told Cogencis.
On Wednesday, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said 7.25 million indirect tax payers have migrated to the new tax regime and 2.1 million people, who were previously outside the tax framework, have also registered themselves.
Officials of Central Board of Excise and Customs and Central Board of Direct Taxes have also been asked to share information on their tax payers, for better compliance, the official said. The prime minister has urged the tax department to bring small businesses with less than 2-million-rupee annual turnover under the new indirect tax net, though it is not mandatory for them to get registered.
In his addresses to tax administrators at Rajasva Gyan Sangam last week, Modi had said that in order to enable traders to take benefit of the goods and services tax, they should work towards ensuring that all traders, including even relatively smaller ones with turnover below 2 mln rupees, should register on the GST Network.
“Bringing these small businesses under GST will help them in taking the benefit of input tax credit when they supply to large companies. It will also ensure that their income will become accessible to the direct tax department,” the official said.
The official said a huge number of new registrations are coming from the textile sector, which was mostly outside the indirect tax regime. Last month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had also asked the tax department to explain the low number of registrations for the composition scheme under the goods and services tax.
