Budget 2018: Additional duty on liquor to be hiked

Bengaluru: The state government has proposed to increase the additional excise duty on Indian Made Liquor (IML) by eight per cent to help it improve its revenue generation from excise, which had fallen short by over Rs 1000 crore  during the previous financial year.

Set a target of Rs 18,050 crore last year, the excise department was able to mop up only Rs 17,600 crore. Now the government has set it a target of Rs 18,750 crore for the next financial year based on the hike in additional excise duty.

The commercial tax department has been set a target of Rs 65, 800 crore, seeing that it exceeded the  target of Rs 55000 crore set for it by the previous Budget by over Rs 2200 crore. The Budget also proposes to amend the Karnataka Tax on

Professions, Trades, Callings and Employment Act, 1976, to enhance the turnover limit for levy of profession tax in certain class of persons in tune with threshold limit for registration as prescribed in the KGST Act, 2017. While the target for revenue collection from stamps and registration has been increased from Rs 9000 crore to Rs 10,400 crore, sales tax  on sale of  ATF to small aircrafts has been cut from 28 per cent  to 5 per cent, to support the Centre’s UDAN scheme.

In other moves, the government has proposed to launch a programme, SURABHI, to digitize heritage/legacy records and increased the revenue collection target of the transport department from Rs 6,006 crore to Rs 6,600 crore.