GST Collections Exceed Rs 1 Lakh Crore In April

The goods and services tax collections in the month of April crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark for the first time since the new tax regime was rolled out on 1 July last year. The total gross revenue for April was Rs 1.03 lakh crore, the finance ministry said in a statement.

GST Collection Break-Up

• Central Goods and Services Tax: Rs 18,652 crore
• State Goods and Services Tax: Rs 25,704 crore
• Integrated Goods and Services Tax: Rs 50,548 crore
• Compensation Cess: Rs 8,554 crore

The Central and state governments earned a total revenue of Rs 32,493 crore for CGST and Rs 40,257 crore for the SGST respectively, after settlement in the month of April.

A total of 60.47 lakh GSTR 3B returns were filed for the month of March, as on 30 April, as against 87.12 lakh who are eligible to file returns for March, thus accounting for 69.5 percent of the eligible proportion, the release said.

The ministry attributed the pick up in tax collections to economic recovery and improvement in compliances. However, it said this should not be taken as a trend since the higher numbers could be partly due to the payment of tax arrears in the month for the last financial year.

With anti-evasion measures like e-way bill already introduced and others like TDS (tax deducted at source), TCS (tax collected at source) and credit matching – which may get introduced in the coming months – the government could be hopeful of very good GST collections in the current fiscal year.

Abhishek Jain, Partner, EY

(This article was originally published on BloombergQuint.)