Time to treatment injury completed by GST to states’ funds: Kerala FM

Written by KG Narendranath, Prasanta Sahu | New Delhi |
Updated: June 21, 2021 1:14:08 am
The idea of Goods and Services Tax (GST) was antithetical to federalism to start with, Kerala Finance Minister KN Balagopal stated, including his voice to a rising refrain of state finance ministers and public-policy consultants searching for a complete overhaul of the construction, design and administration of the four-year-old consumption tax.
“Cooperative federalism is at stake. GST hasn’t yielded the promised revenue productivity. Let us at least learn from experience and restructure the tax. There are also genuine concerns over the (lack of) democratic functioning of the GST Council. It is up to the Union government to display statesmanship and remedy the damage caused by GST to states’ finances and fiscal powers,” he stated.
In the revised Budget for FY22 introduced within the meeting on June 4, Balagopal estimated tax income progress of simply 6.5 per cent on yr, upon nominal GSDP progress assumed of 6.6 per cent. The Budget envisages fiscal deficit to cut back from 4.25 per cent of G-SDP in FY21 to three.5 per cent in FY22 and to three per cent in FY23. He stated a possible pick-up in progress within the subsequent fiscal might enhance buoyancy.

“We will focus on efficient collection of existing taxes and may bring in some taxes as we emerge from pandemic blues”, he stated.