On Tuesday, Journalist Nitin Sethi explained how the Narendra Modi government has been misleading the public on the numbers of Goods and Services Tax (GST).
In a series of tweets, Sethi explained that the numbers given in the government press releases do not reflect the actual GST collection, since it is not the net figure arrived at after accounting for refunds and settlements. The press releases do not account for IGST settlements.
Looking at the revenues for each state, he finds that many states are, in fact, performing very poorly after one year of GST implementation.
“There is a cost all of us as citizens shall pay for the govt falling short of its GST revenues. The govt will have to fill this hole up somehow. Like keeping petrol prices high or selling one PSU to another etc,” wrote Sethi.
Then you got to look at states and their revenue separately. Here is a chart of how state revenues are doing. After a year some are doing quite badly. Why? Ask. pic.twitter.com/kk5svlVNGL
— Nitin Sethi (@nit_set) October 2, 2018
My colleague @ishan_83 and I have been trying to understand GST for months and periodically share what we learn from filing RTIs and sourcing data that the Union govt refuses to share. See how the govt internally measures the gap in in its collections pic.twitter.com/SKF29VByea
— Nitin Sethi (@nit_set) October 2, 2018
Why is that the govt will not share this data with the public? Why should one need to file an RTI for it or source it discreetly? Why is it that we have not asked it to strongly enough so far? Why do we fall for the same press release tricks each time?
— Nitin Sethi (@nit_set) October 2, 2018
There is a cost all of us as citizens shall pay for the govt falling short of its GST revenues. The govt will have to fill this hole up somehow. Like keeping petrol prices high or selling one PSU to another etc.
— Nitin Sethi (@nit_set) October 2, 2018
How good is GST compliance compared to the targets? Why is it REALLY lagging? What kind of evasion tactics have been developed by unscrupulous businesses? Those are the questions we must find answers to next. End
— Nitin Sethi (@nit_set) October 2, 2018