GST Collections: Despite Rate Cuts, January GST Revenue Exceeds Rs 1 Lakh Crore
The Ministry of Finance said on Thursday (Jan 31) that collection from Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the month of January crossed ₹ 1 lakh crore.
This is the third time since the introduction of new indirect tax regime when mobilisation exceeded ₹ 1 lakh crore.
“The total Gross GST Revenue collected in the month of January 2019 has crossed ₹ 1 lakh crore. This has been a significant improvement over collection of ₹ 94,725 crore during last month and ₹ 89,825 crore during the same month last year,” the Finance Ministry said in a tweet on Thursday.
The Ministry of Finance said that the increase has been achieved despite various tax relief measures implemented by the GST Council to lower the tax burden on the consumers.
In its last meeting in December, GST Council made sweeping rate cuts on almost 20 categories of goods and a number of services. Only one common-use item — cement— was left in the highest tax slab of 28%.
The average collection between April and December was ₹96,782 crore. The GST collection stood at Rs. 1.03 lakh crore in April, Rs. 94,016 crore in May, Rs. 95,610 crore in June, Rs. 96,483 crore in July, Rs.93,960 crore in August, Rs. 94,442 crore in September, Rs. 1,00,710 crore in October, Rs. 97,637 crore in November and Rs 89,825 crore in December.
The government is hoping to sustain the revenue momentum to achieve the the annual GST collection target of ₹12 trillion.
The Financial Express quoted Pratik Jain, partner & leader, indirect tax, PwC India as saying that
“This again underlines that collections are increasing steadily as compliance is getting simplified, rates are getting reduced and administration is getting sharper. That said, it’s clear that overall collection for the entire year would be significantly lower than what was budgeted. It will be interesting to see whether the estimated collections in the next financial year would reflect the collection trend in the current year.”