GST collection breaches Rs 1 lakh crore-mark in April

Sanjeev Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

In a boost to the government facing flak for the manner in which the GST had been rolled out, monthly collection crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the first time in April on account of improved compliance, boost in economic activity and the introduction of the e-way bill which has reduced evasion.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed it “a landmark achievement” and a confirmation of increased economic activity.  In a series of tweets, Jaitley expressed the hope that with the improved economic climate, introduction of e-way bill and improved GST compliance, GST collection would continue to show a positive trend.

“Increased tax collection will help the nation to expand its economic horizons and take it to loftier heights”, the Finance Minister said.

Latching on to the buoyant mood, Jaitley congratulated all taxpayers, members of the GST Council, state and Central government tax administration for this achievement.

According to the Finance Ministry data, the total gross GST revenue collected in April is Rs 1.03 lakh crore, of which CGST is Rs 18,652 crore, SGST is Rs 25,704 crore, IGST is Rs 50,548 crore (including Rs 21,246 crore collected on imports) and cess is Rs 8,554 crore.

The Finance Ministry has added a caveat on the latest numbers, saying that usually it is noticed that in the last month of the financial year, people also try to pay arrears of some of the previous months also and, “therefore, this month’s revenue cannot be taken as trend for the future”.

There has been an improvement in the total number of GSTR 3B returns filed for March at 60.47 lakh as against 87.12 lakh, who are eligible to file the return for the month of March, which is 69.5%.

Experts, however, said the measly collection from the composition scheme needs to be investigated. Pratik Jain, Partner and Leader, Indirect Tax, PwC, said, “While the filing of 3B returns has improved and touched almost 70%, for composition dealers this continues to be less than 60%. With only Rs 579 crore coming from these dealers, the government might want to investigate it in detail”.

Vishal Raheja, DGM-GST, Taxmann, said, “Undoubtedly, the impact of e-way bill can be seen from the figures of GST revenue collection. It was highly expected that e-way bill being the strong pillar of GST would raise the revenue after implementation as the chances of evasion would be reduced to significant extent after its rollout. We can expect more increase in revenue collection once invoice-matching is started”.