VIJAYAVADA: Minister for Finance Yanamala Ramakrishnudu on Saturday opposed the GST proposal to increase the tax on the rough mined stones from the present 5 per cent to 12 per cent.

Speaking at the 28th meeting of the GST Council in New Delhi, the Minister said that Andhra Pradesh was not in favour of increasing the tax on the rough stones including Napa Slab stones. However, he supported the move to bring down the tax rate from 18 per cent to 12 per cent on the other stone varieties like cut and worked up Kota stone , sand stone and other similar local stones. He said that the cut in the tax of these stones would benefits lakhs of people across the country.

The Minister supported the move to enhance the limit of value of footwear from Rs 500 to Rs 1000 at 5 per cent tax rate. He also supported the proposal to reduce 17 items like paints, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, storage water heaters, TVs up to 68cm from the present 28 per cent tax to 18 per cent. He told them that the tax cut on these products would benefits mostly the middle class families.

The Minister supported the proposal to increase the turnover limit from Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 5 crore for filing quarterly returns to facilitate small traders. This will reduce compliance burden on more than 90 per cent of the tax payers in the State of Andhra Pradesh, he said.

Stating that AP with its own initiatives had minimised the revenue gap of GST compared to VAT period at 14 per cent growth rate. However, AP revenues were not sufficient to take care of the needs of the state, he said. The Telangana state with 42 per cent population of undivided state, is getting Rs 1811 crore average revenue per month, because of Hyderabad city. However, the residual AP, with 58 per cent of population of united state is getting just Rs 1512 crore only, he highlighted. He also complained that AP was not getting the pre-bifurcation benefits.

On the issue of devolution of Rs 1.16 lakhs of IGST accumulated at the end of the year 2017-18, treating it as funds of Consolidated Fund of India, Delhi and Pondicherry requested that they also should be given the IGST accumulated fund as their state tax payers also pay the amount to IGST. On this, Yanamala suggested to the GST Council that some way out should be found to address the concerns of Delhi and Pondicherry.

