The Telangana government is planning to amend the existing laws to get proper taxes from online businesses, besides bringing in a new law to prevent gutkha sale, which is banned throughout the nation. Speaking to media persons at the Secretariat on Thursday, Commercial Taxes Minister T Srinivas Yadav maintained that the tax collection achieved 85.42 per cent during 2014-15 fiscal by pegging at Rs 23,727.15 crore as against the target of Rs 27,777.92 crore.

Nonetheless, the Minister said, they could achieve 35 per cent more revenue of Rs 6,184.27 crore this year compared to the previous year. He appreciated the officials, who acted in conformity with the ideals of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao to implement myriad variety of welfare schemes. He said uniform tax structure was being planned to set right the difference in taxes levied on corporate hospitals and those running on partnership basis.

Informing that the State got fewer tax collections owing to disparity in prices related to petrol and diesel and shortfall in liquor sales, the Minister said they would take corrective measures. To get tax in a proper way, a special software would be in place to monitor hotel business and sale of cinema tickets, he said, adding that an amendment had been made to transactions related to FCI and Civil Supplies Department.

More importantly, the department will levy taxes on unofficial goods entering into the State by strengthening the check-posts and setting up integrated check-posts on the State borders. Towards this end, the officials have conducted a study on the activities of check-posts in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

“The businessmen should have social responsibility to pay taxes in time, lest they would face action,” he said and warned that the government would make use of informer system through a corpus fund of Rs 2 crore and offer about 10 per cent of income through tax collection or Rs 50,000 as gift to the informers.