Thiruvananthapuram, May 6:States are all game to shovel out more taxes making Centre's tax cake bigger, provided each state gets a decent bite of it, empowered comittee of states on Vat chairman Asim K Dasgupta said. Just as Vat shift perked up corporate tax inflows, the proposed GST (goods and services tax) could mop up Rs 1 lakh crore of the reported untaxed black money sloshing around in the Indian economy, he said.

As 13th Finance Commission (TFC) is pulling up its socks for its report in October, a good many of the finance ministers of 20 states are putting their heads together to cajole Vijay Kelkar panel into giving an effective ear to their fiscal federalism worries. Casting aside their political hues, finance ministers from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Haryana agreed to take a unified stand on the sore spots in Centre's fund devolution.

“It’s a positive sum game. It would serve Centre and states well,: Dasgupta, who's also West Bengal finance minister, told FE. But, much would depend on how much revenue-sharing the Centre is game to do with the states. And the GST rates, should be ideally the choice of a states’ meet as the Empowered Committee on Vat, said Kerala finance minister TM Thomas Isaac, at a seminar on Centre-State financial relations organised by Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, here.

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