By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal has demanded the central government raise the dual control threshold of the centre as well as states in collection of proposed GST for the traders, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra said Sunday.
“The central government proposed that businesses of more than Rs.1.5 crore annual turnover will come under dual control of state as well as central governments. We said for industry, Rs.1.5 crore threshold is ok, but for the traders this threshold level should be raised to at least Rs.10 crore,” Mitra said while speaking at the West Bengal Trade Convention here.
Mitra, who was in Delhi early this month to attend a meet of finance ministers for smooth roll-out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), said the states would discuss the dual control threshold, among other things.
“We raised the demand in favour of our small and medium traders as only big and international traders should face the dual assessment,” he said.
“Our demand was that the state finance ministers should prepare the bill on consensus basis. Then only the autonomy of the states will be maintained,” Mitra said.
Dual control would mean a trader will have to file details of sales or transactions with both the central and state when the GST will come up.
According to Mitra, during the current financial year, about 55,000 new traders enrolled their names in the state.
He said the government was eyeing about Rs.12,000 crore revenue collection from the state’s traders this fiscal.
“The state had able to garner a revenue of Rs.9,566 crore from our traders in the last financial year. This year we are targeting Rs.12,000 crore,” he added.