Gross goods and services tax (GST) collections came in at about Rs 1.52 trillion in October (September transactions), the second highest monthly mop-up since the tax was rolled out in July 2017. The average monthly collections for the current financial year are expected to be in the range of Rs 1.52-1.55 trillion, an official said, indicating higher receipts in the remainder of the year.
Average monthly GST collections rose to Rs 1.49 trillion/month in the first seven months of the current financial year, compared with Rs 1.23 trillion in the whole of FY22. Higher GST receipts mean the Centre could garner up to Rs 1.5 trillion more than budgeted as Central GST (CGST) in FY23, while states together would garner a little more than that as additional receipts, boosting the resources to fund programmes.
Besides better compliance and enforcement, elevated inflation also aided buoyancy in GST collections.
The revenue for October 2022 is the second-highest monthly collection, next only to the collection in April 2022 (Rs 1.68 trillion) and it is for the second time that the gross GST collection has crossed the Rs 1.5-trillion mark since the tax was rolled out in July 2017.
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October also saw the second-highest collection from domestic transactions, next only to April 2022. This is the ninth month and for eight months in a row now that the monthly GST revenues have been over the Rs 1.4-trillion mark. During September 2022, 83 million e-way bills were generated, which was significantly higher than the 77 million e-way bills generated in August 2022.
“While the festive season in the last month has aided in the said collections, the increased administration by both Centre and the states has also aided the revenue growth. With both the revenue wings — the CBDT and the CBIC charged up with increasing the tax collection, healthy collection can be expected in the coming months too,” EY LLP tax partner Saurabh Agarwal said. The self-sustained economy seems to be trending with a further decline in the tax collection on imports due to various fiscal policies of the Indian government, Agarwal added.
GST collections from the import of goods were at Rs 37,297 crore in October, compared with Rs 41,215 crore in the previous month.
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October gross GST revenue is Rs 1,51,718 crore, of which CGST is Rs 26,039 crore, state GST is Rs 33,396 crore, integrated GST is Rs 81,778 crore (including Rs 37,297 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 10,505 crore (including Rs 825 crore collected on import of goods), which is the second highest till date.
The government has settled Rs 37,626 crore to Central GST and Rs 32,883 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, the Centre has also settled Rs 22,000 crore on an ad-hoc basis in the ratio of 50:50 between the Centre and states. The total revenue of the Centre and the states after regular as well as ad-hoc settlements in October 2022 is Rs 74,665 crore for CGST and Rs 77,279 crore for the SGST.