CAG Pegs Odisha Govt’s Revenue Loss At Over Rs 795 Crore In 2017-18

Bhubaneswar: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has detected revenue loss of Rs 795.18 crore by the Odisha government on various counts in 2017-18.

In its report presented in the Assembly, the CAG mentioned that under-assessment, short levy and loss of revenue amounted to Rs 795.18 crore in 59,387 cases during the year. As many as 1,401 assessment files, returns, refund registers and other relevant records involving tax amount of Rs 2,004.18 crore relating to Commercial Tax wing of the Finance Department were not made available to audit for scrutiny.

However, the tax and non-tax revenue of the total revenue of the state increased from 41.58 per cent in 2016-17 to 42.60 per cent in the year.

While misclassification of goods resulted in loss of tax and penalty amounting to Rs 64.07 lakh, improper scrutiny of return by Assessing Authorities for delayed payment of tax led to loss of Rs 73.73 lakh towards interest and penalty.

Similarly, no action was initiated for imposing penalty of Rs 5.01 crore against the dealers who had not submitted the Certified Annual Audited Accounts (CAAA).

The tax amount under the CST Act and OVAT Act were not correlated to work out the tax which resulted in loss of Rs 28.38 lakh. Minor minerals were not assessed for Entry Tax which led to revenue loss of Rs 56.52 lakh, the CAG report stated.

It further said the Department did not analyse case-wise reasons in respect of 41,159 dealers who did not migrate to GST. Audit could not derive an assurance that all dealers due for registration under GST were actually registered.

“In eight Circles, 339 taxpayers filed transitional Input Tax Credit claims amounting to Rs 42.24 crore. Out of this, 251 cases involving Rs 39.71 crore were verified and 88 cases (26 per cent) remained unverified in all the circles,” the CAG report said.