Scrutiny and Assessment relating to Gold-Kerala VAT 2018
Government have set up the target of 25% revenue growth this financial year. It
is observed that the revenue work progress is slow. Time and again Government
has informed to take strategic actions to improve revenue by identifying
potential areas and completing the priority cases. The Gold sector is one of the
important areas to be examined in detail.
Random verification of assessment records relating to Gold dealers done in
some of the districts revealed that the record keeping of the cases is very poor,
statutory forms, certificates and statements as prescribed in KVAT Act and Rules
to prove the veracity of claims have not been adduced. In majority of cases
scrutiny and assessment not attempted. Wherever it is done, in many cases,
irregularities were noticed in fixing compounded tax rate, computation of tax
liability and even basic fact of eligibility for compounding. The officers have not
taken serious efforts sending the notices to collect the statutory data/records/
returns/ information etc and the cases are going time bar. This could result in
huge revenue losses to the State exchequer.
As GST is implemented, it is imperative that all pending VAT assessment
especially in areas such as Gold should be completed in time bound manner to
ensure that legitimate tax is remitted to Government.
http://keralataxes.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Circular-4-Gold-26th-Feb-2018.pdf