Amid reports of the GST Council considering raising tax rates, Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac on Tuesday said that Kerala will move the Supreme Court if the Central Government refuses to honour compensation, CNBC TV-18 reported. It comes days after he said that the state government will approach the apex court under Article 131 to secure the pending dues. For any revenue shortfall below 14 per cent (base year 2015-16) for the first five years to 2022, the states are guaranteed by the central government in terms of compensation, according to the GST Act. In the April-November period, just above Rs 64,000 were collected by the central government in compensation cess, according to the central government data. In April-July, the government disbursed nearly Rs 48,000 crore, leaving Rs 18,784 crore assuming no payment has yet been made to states for August-September.

Opposing the suggestion of raising tax slabs, Thomas Isaac said hiking slabs now is not a right decision as in the current situation it’s not right to impose a higher burden on people. So, it’s better to raise the higher slab, he added. Adding, he said that the government shifted items from upper slab out of electoral compulsions.

Meanwhile, the Central GST collection fell short of the budgeted estimate by nearly 40 per cent during the April-November period of 2019-20, according to the latest government data. The actual CGST collection during April-November stood at Rs 3,28,365 crore while the budgeted estimate is of Rs 5,26,000 crore for these months, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. The minister added that the data was, however, provisional. In 2018-19, the actual CGST collection stood at Rs 4,57,534 crore as against the provisional estimate of Rs 6,03,900 crore for the year, he said. In 2017-18, the CGST collection was Rs 2,03,261 crore.

Source : Economic Times