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Amnesty schemes help state recover ₹3,150 crore in tax revenue
The first amnesty scheme led to the recovery of ₹2300 crore while the second scheme helped in recovering ₹850 crore
MUMBAI: Two amnesty schemes implemented in the last two financial years helped the state government to recover tax revenue of over ₹3150 crore and settle outstanding bills, reducing its outstanding tax revenue from ₹1.92 lakh crore in 2022-23 to ₹1.51 lakh crore in 2024-25.
According to the budget documents tabled in the state legislature last week, the outstanding revenue from sales, value addition, excise duty, stamp and registration duty is ₹151290 crore. Of it, ₹99395 crore are from disputed and unrecovered cases. The remaining amount is undisputed but could not be recovered by the authorities for various reasons.
The amount of the unrecovered taxes was ₹155072 crore in 2023-24 and ₹192741 crore in 2022-23. After the outstanding tax amount mounted exponentially, the state government introduced amnesty schemes in two consecutive budgets tabled in February 2022 and February 2023.
The first scheme had the provision of writing off outstanding bills below 10,000 while the second scheme, announced in 2023, extended the limit to ₹2 lakh. The business houses with outstanding amounts that crossed the cut-off limit were given the offer to pay the minimum amount of 20% in slabs, with the provision of writing off the remaining outstanding dues.
The first amnesty scheme led to the recovery of ₹2300 crore while the second scheme helped in recovering ₹850 crore. The first scheme, launched in 2022, saw the writing off of 89890 cases and the waiver of ₹30.3 crore, while the waiver availed by the parties by paying the partial tax amount was ₹5699 crore.
“Two third of the cases of outstanding revenue are disputed and are within the range of 1-10 years. Some of the litigants participated in the Amnesty schemes, thereby helping us in reducing the over ₹46000 crore of outstanding taxes in the last two years,” said a top official of the finance department.
Notably, the highest outstanding amount is ₹105907 crore against VAT on petrol and diesel followed by ₹32090 against central sales tax.
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