Team Goemkarponn
PANAJI: The Department of Commercial Taxes used data intelligence to identify about 260 cab operators who might not have paid the GST.
According to sources, the department demanded GST payments from the cab operators and sent them notifications. The Department of State Tax collected information from banks, the regional transport office, the IT department, and other organizations over the course of three months in order to identify companies that were dodging taxes in the state.
“We found that many individuals running taxi businesses, rent-a-cab and rent-a-bike businesses have more than 10-12 vehicles, but are not paying any tax,” according to a source.
Businesses must register for GST and pay taxes if their annual turnover exceeds Rs 40 lakh for commodities and Rs 20 lakh for services.
“We calculated that a person’s turnover comes to Rs 20 lakh if they own more than 5–6 cabs. The official stated, “If this turnover occurs between April 1 and March 31, they must register for a GST number and pay tax within 31 days,” they said.
Taxi owners and other stakeholders said that the government has clarified that Goa Miles is paying GST. Now they want to harass Goan taxi drivers.
“For this, the weapon ‘Notice’ is being used. GST has to be paid only if the business turnover is more than 20 lakhs. But taxi drivers don’t earn that much money. So they don’t need to pay GST.”
Taxi owners claimed that they now have to go to ‘CA’ to respond to notices issued by the government. More than 20 thousand was spent there. He has alleged that this is a conspiracy of the government to harass the taxi owners.
Notifications to the operators have already begun to be sent by the department. Two to three weeks have been granted to the designated persons to provide evidence of their exemption from paying taxes.
“This practice is still going on. The officer will make the decision on the cab owner’s eligibility and liability for GST. Data collection and comparison have benefited from digitization, and the system makes it quite easy,” the insider stated.
