Having a deep discourse over fiscal transparency, Finance Commission and CAG unitedly commit to standard based accounting

News Bharati    09-Jul-2019
Total Views |
New Delhi, July 9: Discussing the fiscal transparency, lack of underlying conceptual framework and under-reporting of deficit, debt, the 15th Finance Commission on Tuesday met the Comptroller and Auditor General, further committing towards standards based accounting. 

 
 
The main issues that were discussed during the meeting potential risks of absence of revenue deficit as a target, quality of capital expenditure, asset accounting and additional impact of GST on revenue.
 
The issue of fiscal transparency in the fiscal reporting of the Union and State Governments was discussed especially in the light of increasing trend of off-budget and extra-budgetary resource rising by the government, where CAG highlighted the fiscal risks due to non-transparency.
The CAG further presented the details on the quality of capital expenditure by various levels of government and the underlying inconsistency in measuring and capturing capital spending. It also highlighted the need for reforms in government accounting by moving towards standard based accounting in the government.
 
Besides, some insights and observations drawn from CAG’s report of Centre on expenditure patterns, GST revenue, capital expenditure, were presented to the Commission.