Shillong, Mar 20: The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India (Revenue Sector) for the year ended March 31, 2019, observed that the State’s Taxation Department rolled out the Goods and Services Tax (GST) with outdated/obsolete hardware equipment and except for Shillong the internet connectivity to the tax administrators remained poor for implementing it, for which efficient net connectivity with modern computers/servers and other equipments is a must.
The CAG observed that the State had only 17692 dealers under GST as on March 31, 2019, which was only 34 percent of the registered dealers under VAT regime migrated to GST.
“In absence of any exercise carried out by the department to analyse this gap in tax base under the Meghalaya GST and its impact on the State’s revenue, we cannot givas an assurance that all potential taxpayers were correctly registered under the taxation system,†the CAG Report stated.
According to the CAG Report absence of cross checks by the taxation officials to ensure proper filing of tax returns by the tax deductors at source and tax compliance by the deductees/contractors provided scope to contractors to evade payment of GST by filing ‘nil returns’.
The CAG Report stated that in absence of effective enforcement activities in the Taxation department and no mechanism for sharing of information across departments, audit noticed several cases of tax evasion due to misreporting by the traders bringing goods to the State.
The CAG suggested that in view of the deficiencies pointed out by the audit in implementation of the GST roll out, the government needs to increase its efforts for a comprehensive implementation plan for the GST.
“It also need to take remedial action on non-filing of returns by dealers under the GST and on incorrect claims/nil returns filed by dealers for the period reviewed, until an efficient and user friendly computerised system is put in place,†the CAG said.
