The amount that suffices to be the total annual budget of a small- or a medium-level state of India is equivalent to the pending dues that Gujarat government is to receive from industrial or commercial units from the state. Different industrial and commercial units of Gujarat owe at least Rs 37,150 crore to the state government as sales tax, Value-added Tax (VAT) and Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The Gujarat government levy these taxes from the units against the sale of their products and the units are supposed to pay the taxes by a stipulated period of time, but in Gujarat, around 18,000 such units have crossed this deadline and are now categorised as tax defaulters. All these defaulters owe more than Rs 1 lakh each to the government in taxes, which means that the unpaid tax could be even higher.
The details came out in form of government's reply to a question asked by Congress MLA from Dhoraji, Lalit Vasoya. The question was addressed to state Finance Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel during the recently finished Monsoon Session of the Gujarat Assembly.
"The government put the question under the category of 'unstarred question' so that I'm unable to debate it in the House, but the written reply was put in the records of the Assembly by the government," Vasoya said.
Vasoya sought details on the number of industrial or commercial units in state who owed more than Rs 1 lakh as tax — levied in the form of sales tax, VAT and GST — to the government, and the total amount of unpaid tax. He also asked the minister to give details on government's action against tax defaulters and efforts taken for recovery of dues.
The government, in its reply, said, "...a total of 17,960 units, together, owe Rs 37,150 crore to the government. The government acted upon the units in 14,866 cases because the same were not stayed by court or were not subjudice matters. Yet they could not recover the dues from the units. The government could not act against 3,094 units, which owe more than Rs 15,262 crore to the state in form of taxes as the court stayed procedure for the same. The government acted under the acts related to sales tax, VAT and GST but the amount remains pending to recover."
Ahmedabad district topped the list with a pending tax of Rs 11,446 crore in 5,109 cases. The district was followed by Vadodara with Rs 5,432 crore as pending dues from 1,201 units; Kutch with Rs 3,875 crore pending to recover from 1,817 units; Surat with Rs 3,000 crore to be recovered from 1,630 units and Morbi with Rs 2,942 crore from 1,506 units.
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