New Delhi, July 1 : Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has brought in credibility and transparency in taxation during the last five years.
Speaking at a programme organised as part of the GST Day 2022 celebrations at Vigyan Bhawan here, she said legacy tax rates have been removed which means citizens are paying same tax for same service or same commodity across the country.
It is so much right in terms of equity for taxation and therefore no citizen should be paying more taxes for anything, she said.
Stating that equity of taxation has now been established, she said because of technology-driven systems there is no cascading effect of taxation, double taxation or overlapping of taxation which could lead to confusion.
The said though the GST has decreased discretion to a large extent yet there is need to perform better in terms of removing even an iota of discretion if it is relevant.
‘We should make sure that the system is so transparent that even whispers of allegations somewhere on the ground should be completely removed,’ she said.
She announced that the gross GST revenue collected in the month of June 2022 is Rs 1,44,616 crore, which is 56 per cent more compared to the same month last year and said it will be ensured that the GST collection remains above Rs 1,40,000 crore per month.
She praised the officers of Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) for playing a critical role in the taxation system and said there was much to learn from the experience and competition among the departments.
