Centre planning to come up with lottery scheme for GST paying customers

New Delhi [India], Nov 26 (ANI): The Ministry of Finance is planning to come up with a lottery scheme to lure customers to pay Goods and Services Tax (GST).

This will be a step to improve compliance and check on tax leakage, a senior Finance Ministry official told ANI.

The lottery scheme plan is to hold daily and monthly lotteries for customers who take a copy of the bill after paying GST for business to consumer transactions, the official said.

The bill will have to be uploaded on a dedicated portal or app which will be made later. The app of the portal will auto-capture phone number, bill number and GST number of the trader through which names of winners will be selected, the official added.

Once the consensus at officers level is reached then it will be put before GST Council meeting.

Monthly reward through lotteries will be 'high' to lure customers in paying GST. It will also help to mop up GST collections.

A minimum threshold for bills would be decided to participate in the lottery and would exclude water and electricity bills.

The prize for the lottery would come from the consumer welfare fund.

The scheme is on similar lines with the one introduced by Delhi government to reward customers for paying Value Added Tax, the ministry official said.

Delhi Government had introduced 'Bill Banao, Inaam Pao' scheme in 2015 during the VAT regime.

As per the scheme introduced by the Delhi government, a customer was eligible for a prize of five times the taxable value subject to a cap of Rs 50,000, if he made a purchase from a registered dealer. The minimum taxable value of goods was Rs 100 and included eateries.

Once the lottery scheme system is introduced it will also help to keep a check on the traders who are collecting GST from people but not depositing the same with the government.

"Once we make system traders forging entries will fear being caught," said another official from the ministry.