Goods and services tax (GST) collections for May 2022 came in at Rs 1.41 lakh crore, 16% lower than the mop-up in April. On a year-on-year basis, however, the collection in May grew by over 44% as the government had collected Rs 97,821 crore in the same month of 2021.
The trend shows the collection in May, which pertains to the returns for April, the first month of the financial year, has always been lesser than that in April, which pertains to the returns for March, the closing of the financial year.
The total number of e-way bills generated in April was 7.4 crore, which is 4% lesser than the 7.7 crore e-way bills generated in the month of March 2022.
Under GST, transporters carry e Way Bill when moving goods from one place to another. A higher generation of such a bill indicates robust GST collection.
This is only the fourth time the monthly GST collection crossed the Rs 1.40 lakh crore mark since the inception of GST and the third month at a stretch since March 2022.
During the month under review, revenues from import of goods were 43% higher and the revenues from the domestic transaction (including import of services) are 44% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.
"The stability demonstrated by GST collections exceeding Rs 1.4 lakh crore over the past three months is a good indicator of the growth of the economy and ties in with the other macroeconomic indicators including the GDP numbers. Significant efforts in audits and analytics have also led to a drive against tax evaders, inculcating a tax compliance culture. The reduction in collections compared with the previous months was expected as the collections for March, being the last month of the fiscal year, have always been more than other months of the year," said M S Mani, partner at Deloitte India.