Commercial tax collection improves marginally

Indicating slow recovery in the state’s economy, the commercial tax collection has grown by 4.78 per cent in the first seven months of the current fiscal compared to only 3.17 percent in the six months ending September 30.

The total collections were Rs 2968.67 crore during Apr-Oct compared to Rs 2833.24 crore in the same period last year.

The collection of value added tax (VAT) increased by 10.56 percent to Rs 2326.12 crore during Apr-Oct this year compared to Rs 2104 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. The collection of professional tax increased by 28.77 percent to Rs 51.85 crore (Rs 43.36 crore).

While collection of Central Sales Tax (CST) dropped by 27.1 percent (due to decline in the CST rate from 3 percent to 2 percent this fiscal) to Rs 248.42 crore, the revenue from Orissa Entertainment Tax (OET) and Orissa Land Tax (OLT) increased by 17.99 percent. The state government was able to collect Rs 340.76 crore CST during the first seven months of 2008-09.

Though the cumulative growth in entry tax continues to be negative, the monthly growth for October was 8.24 percent higher than the corresponding month last year. The lifting of the stay on collection of this tax by the Supreme Court has helped in the positive growth.

“The entry tax collection was miserable due to litigations in various high courts. Since the Supreme Court has vacated the stay, this will increase the collection significantly in the coming months”, said a senior official.

Sources said, the growth of collection of commercial tax in the month of October was 13.96 percent, compared to 9.8 percent in the previous month. While VAT collection increased by 16.72 percent, entertainment tax collection increased by 8.24 percent. It may be noted, the government targets to collect Rs 6680 crore from commercial taxes during the current fiscal.