The Goods and Services Tax (GST) has increased industry taxpayer base by more than 50 per cent with 34 lakh businesses coming into the tax net.
In what can be seen as a new tax sources in addition to existing Excise tax (0.01 million), Service tax (0.6 Million) and and VAT registrants (1.8 Million) an additional 3.4 million entities registered themselves for GST. The first glace analysis of data shows GST registrants that this rise may be attributed to registrations by small enterprises that want to avail themselves of input tax credits or due to the fact that registered entities have forced their vendors/suppliers to register for the input tax credit.
The report further stated that one of the many benefits of the GST was the voluntary compliance it has elicited. There are about 1.7 million registrants who were below the threshold limit (and hence not obliged to register) who nevertheless chose to do so. Indeed, out of the total estimated 71 million non-agriculture enterprises, it is estimated that around 13 percent are registered in GST.
Maharashtra, UP, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are the states with the greatest number of GST registrants. UP and West Bengal have seen large increases in the number of tax registrants compared to the old tax regime.
