Chandigarh, July 5 -- Finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Friday emphasised the need to bring structural changes in the goods and service tax (GST) regime and proposed policy recommendations for revenue augmentation, including food grains under its framework, reducing or nullifying the inverted duty structure, and making e-way bill generation and e-invoicing mandatory. Presenting a comprehensive overview of Punjab's revenue generation during the first meeting of the group of ministers (GoM) on 'Analysis of Revenue from GST' held in New Delhi, Cheema also suggested that a unified platform can be developed, giving access to all states and the Central Tax Authority for data analytics and detecting tax evasion and compliance issues. He also flagged the revenue loss the state faced due to the subsumption of various taxes following the implementation of GST in 2017. Cheema said that Punjab, as an agrarian economy, heavily relied on purchase tax and infrastructure development fee (ID fee) on the sale of grains (wheat and rice), collecting Rs.3,094 crore in 2015-16, which represented 16.55% of its total tax revenue, and experienced a permanent loss of revenue as a result of subsumption of these taxes. He also pointed out the loss from the subsumption of central sales tax (CST), which previously contributed Rs.568 crore to the state's exchequer. He claimed that under the previous VAT regime, Punjab had a higher collection of revenue as compared to the GST regime, expressing concern over a consistent shortfall in GST collection, with actual revenue significantly lower than the projected revenue based on a 14% growth rate on the base year. "Had GST not been implemented, Punjab's revenue position would have been better, even with a conservative 10% CAGR growth," he claimed, adding that the state faced a shortfall of Rs.47,037 crore since July 1, 2022. The finance minister argued that states dependent on agriculture should be compensated for the permanent loss of revenue due to the subsumption of purchase tax on food grains. He also highlighted a paradoxical situation where major industrial sectors in Punjab, such as agricultural implements, cycle and cycle parts, and hosiery goods, show high gross turnovers but do not exhibit a commensurate increase in GST collection. "This is largely due to GST being a destination-based consumption tax, leading to revenue flowing out of Punjab through SGST input tax credit adjustments against IGST liability, creating a net outflow of revenue," he said. Further recommendations included making e-way bills mandatory for evasion-prone commodities irrespective of the threshold, mandatory e-invoicing for B2B supplies for manufacturers and B2C supplies, mandatory mapping of IP addresses with GSTN and E-way bills for tracking fraudulent taxpayers, and the introduction of geo-fencing. He also advocated for the development of a unified AI-based platform for data integration from various government portals for both central and state tax authorities, and mandatory biometric authentication for taxpayers registered before its implementation based on risk profiling. Besides Cheema, the GoM has the chief minister of Goa, deputy CMs of Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana, and finance ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu as members....