Vijayawada: AP minister for finance, Yanamala Ramakrishnudu, on Saturday opposed the GST proposal to increase tax on rough mined stones from 5% to 12%.Speaking at the 28th meeting of the GST Council in New Delhi, he said that Andhra Pradesh is not in favour of increasing tax on the rough stones, including Napa Slab stones. However, he supported the move to bring down the tax rate from 18% 12% on other stone varieties such as cut and worked up Kota stone, sand stone, and similar local stones. He said that the cut in the tax of these stones will benefits lakhs of people across the country.Ramakrishnudu supported the move to enhance the limit of value of footwear from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 at 5% tax rate. He also supported the proposal to reduce tax on 17 items such as paints, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, storage water heaters, and TVs up to 68cm, from the present 28% tax to 18%. He told them that the tax cut on these products will mostly benefit middle class families.The minister also backed the proposal to increase the turnover limit from Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 5 crore for filing quarterly returns to facilitate small traders.Stating that AP, with its own initiatives, has minimised the revenue gap of GST compared to the VAT period at 14% growth rate. However, AP’s revenues were not sufficient to take care of the needs of the state, he said. The Telangana state, with 42% population of undivided state, is getting Rs 1,811 crore average revenue per month, because of Hyderabad city. However, the residual AP, with 58% of population of united AP, is getting just Rs 1,512 crore only, he said. The FM also complained that AP is not getting pre-bifurcation benefits.On the issue of devolution of Rs 1.16 lakh of IGST accumulated at the end of the year 2017-18, treating it as funds of Consolidated Fund of India, Delhi and Puducherry requested that they also should be given the IGST accumulated fund as their state tax payers also pay the amount to IGST. On this, Yanamala suggested to the GST Council that some way out should be found to address the concerns of Delhi and Puducherry.

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