)
The West Bengal government presented the Budget for 2015-16 without any new taxes and projected a nearly 16 per cent rise in Plan outlay.
The Plan outlay was set at Rs 49,507 crore, against Rs 42,694 crore in the 2014-15 budget. The revised revenue deficit figure for 2014-15, the ongoing financial year, ending March 31, will remain high at Rs 10,362 crore but this is also 45 per cent lower than the actual figure in 2013-14, at Rs 18,915 crore.
However, the state will not achieve its tax collection target of Rs 45,413 crore for 2014-15; it estimates Rs 40,062 crore this financial year.
“We have been able to bring many small and medium dealers under the tax net, along with complete transparency,” said Finance Minister Amit Mitra.
The state has set an ambitious target to contain the fiscal deficit at Rs 15,982 crore in 2015-16, against the revised figure of Rs 23,882 crore in 2014-15.
Despite a big debt burden, the gross value added was 10.48 per cent in 2014-15, against 7.5 per cent for the entire country, said Mitra.
Taxes
The threshold of annual turnover for paying value added tax has been raised to Rs 10 lakh, against Rs 5 lakh earlier. This will remove nearly 20,000 dealers from its ambit.
The government has also introduced an amnesty scheme for unregistered dealers, upon payment of a reduced tax on their self-declared turnover. This apart, the dealers can discharge past liabilities by paying a fixed percentage of past dues, with full waiver of interest and penalty for assessment cases pending in appeal or revision as on end-January 2015.
Changes in assessment procedures reduced assessments from 173,588 in 2011-12 to 40,493 in 2013-14, a drop of 300 per cent. According to Mitra, simplification of refund procedures resulted in a more than eight-times increase in the number and a 14-times increase in the amount of pre-assessment refunds.
The government proposes to merge the professional tax set-up with the existing commercial tax directorate. Some of the concessions announced include stamp duty relief for property registration with market value up to Rs 40 lakh, extension of the industrial promotion assistance scheme, cess relief to tea gardens and exemption to tea estates from payment of unpaid interest on both agricultural income tax and cess, on stipulated conditions. And, reduction of the amusement tax on certain non-cinema entertainment shows.
Debt
In 2015-16, government debt is set to touch Rs 299,274 crore, against Rs 274,800 crore in 2014-15 (revised). In 2015-16, the total loan repayment bill will be Rs 32,567 crore, against Rs 30,661 crore in 2014-15 (revised).
“We have been talking to successive governments at the Centre to provide a debt waiver. We were hoping the 14th Finance commission would address this issue but there is no mention of debt waiver in its report. In fact, it is only for West Bengal that the Centre has been deducting huge money from our treasury,” said Mamata Banerjee, chief minister.
