Calcutta, July 2: Commercial tax officers in Bengal are miffed over the disparity in designation with their central government counterparts under the goods and service tax.

Bengal employs over 1,000 tax officers who were appointed under the West Bengal Value Added Tax, 2003, and now deemed to be appointed under the West Bengal Goods and Services Tax Ordinance, 2017.

These officers were entrusted with the collection of erstwhile state commercial taxes such as value-added tax, entry tax and luxury tax, From July, they will be responsible for the collection of state goods and service tax.

However, though their executive powers are the same as that of their central government counterparts, there is a difference in nomenclature when it comes to designation.

While Bengal officers under state GST are called state tax officers, the central government officers of the corresponding executive positions are called assistant commissioners of central tax.

"It is being said that GST is an example of co-operative federalism and tax officers both appointed by the Centre and states will equally play their roles in the efficient implementation of GST. Unfortunately, in our case, there is no uniformity in designation even though the workload is similar. "Our officers are simply called state tax officers compared with the officers appointed by the Centre who hold the rank of commissioners," a senior commercial tax official said.

"Under GST, the role of the state tax officers is set to widen as not only goods, but also services come under their purview. Moreover, 90 per cent of the tax files of assessees with a turnover of less than Rs 1.5 crore, will be handled by the state tax officers. We have to reach out to new assesses as well as retain some existing ones. This distinction in designation may undermine the image of the state officers for the assessees," said the official.

Some states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat have introduced the post of assistant commissioners under their respective state GST act.

Bengal has so far introduced an ordinance and commercial tax officers hope that the state government will consider a change once the act is passed in the state Assembly.

"Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra has been appraised of this. He has played a crucial role in the shaping of GST and we hope this issue is taken into consideration," said the officer.

State finance ministry sources, however, said the ordinance only mentioned a change in designation.

"In the pre-GST era, we had commercial tax officers. Now, we will have state tax officers," the source said.

However, there is a view among some government officials that the state government could have introduced the change in designation in the ordinance itself to boost the confidence of the tax officers. Further, though the basic grade pay is similar for both the central and state officers, but the take-home salary of the state officers is lower as Bengal lags in terms of the payment of dearness allowance.

As of March, Bengal government employees get around 46 per cent less dearness allowance than their central peers. A change in designation could have prompted expectations of a pay revision while the government had budgeted for a meager Rs 2,844 crore rise in budgetary allocation for salaries and wages in the current fiscal year.