134% rise in active GST payers in 7 years
Ahmedabad: Since the goods and services tax (GST) was rolled out seven years ago, there has been a sizable 134% rise in the number of new taxpayers. State commercial tax department data shows that active taxpayers have grown in numbers from 5.08 lakh on July 1, 2017, when the regime came into effect to 11.95 lakh currently. Industry experts and tax professionals attribute the increase to greater formalization of the economy and fresh investments.
“A clear reason is improved business growth which contributes to a rise in the number of GSTINs issued year after year. However, the new tax regime is taxpayer-friendly due to which new registrations were granted more liberally,” said a source in the SGST department. Interestingly, there was only a 0.5% increase in registrations in FY 2024 over the 11.90 lakh registrations during FY 2023.
“To curb the growing menace of bogus billing scams for tax evasion, the process for obtaining new registrations underwent a paradigm shift with mandatory biometric verification. This led to a marked decline in fresh GSTIN applications. The new system was implemented in Oct 2023 and the change became evident the next month onwards,” a senior SGST official requesting anonymity, told TOI.
