Goods and services tax collection amounted to Rs 1.56 trillion in January 2023, which was the second highest mop-up since the introduction of the indirect tax levy in July 2017. Receipts from GST touched a record high of Rs 1.68 trillion in April 2022.
According to the finance ministry data, of the gross GST revenue collected in the month of January 2023 till 5 pm, central GST was Rs 28,963 crore, state GST was Rs 36,730 crore, integrated GST was Rs 79,599 crore (including Rs 37,118 crore collected on import of goods) and cess was Rs 10,630 crore (including Rs 768 crore collected on import of goods).
The collection in January 2023 was 10.6% higher than Rs 1.41 trillion collected in January 2022.
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On a sequential basis, the collection was 4.7% higher than December’s Rs 1.495 trillion. “The revenues in the current financial year up to the month of January 2023 are 24% higher than the GST revenues during the same period last year,” said the finance ministry in a statement on Tuesday.
The government has settled Rs 38,507 crore to central GST and Rs 32,624 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement in January 2023. The total revenue of the Centre and the states in the month of January 2023 after regular settlement was Rs 67,470 crore for CGST and Rs 69,354 crore for the state GST.
“The revenues for period up to January 2023 this fiscal from import of goods are 29% higher and from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 22% higher than the revenues from these sources for the same period last year,” the finance ministry further said.
During the month of December 2022, 8.3 crore e-way bills were generated, which was the highest so far and was significantly higher than 7.9 crore e-way bills generated in November 2022.
January’s collections are in sync with the monthly average mop up of Rs 1.5 trillion this fiscal as against the average monthly mop up from GST at Rs 1.23 trillion in 2021-22.
This is for the third time, in the current financial year, GST collection has crossed Rs 1.50 lakh crore mark.
Along with a normalisation in economic activities and the impact of high inflation that have boosted collections, the government has also made various efforts to increase the tax base and improve compliance.The percentage of filing of GST returns (GSTR-3B) and of the statement of invoices (GSTR-1), till the end of the month, has improved significantly over years, the finance ministry said. In the quarter ending December 31, 2022, a total 2.42 crore GST returns were filed as compared to 2.19 crore in the same quarter in the last year.
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Mahesh Jaising, Partner, Deloitte India said the growth indicates that revenues are stabilising, which could result in government taking some additional business friendly measures such as working capital relief measures and rate rationalisation.
Abhishek Jain, Partner, Indirect Tax at KPMG in India said the high collections sets a perfect momentum for the Union Budget 2023-24. “December saw the highest number of e-way bills getting generated, which clearly indicates an uptick in economic activity. With the Economic Survey 22-23 indicating that the taxpayer numbers have almost doubled from the initial 2017 numbers it seems that such high GST collections can be expected to be normal for the coming months,” he said.
The Economic Survey 2022-23 said GST has now evolved and stabilised as a vital revenue source for central and state government. The number of GST taxpayers has increased to over 1.4 crore in 2022 from from nearly 70 lakh in 2017. It attributed the improvement in GST collections to the combined effect of the rapid economic recovery post-pandemic, the nationwide drive against GST evaders and fake bills along with many systemic changes introduced recently, and various rate rationalisation measures undertaken by the GST Council to correct inverted duty structure.