GST collection for October tops Rs 1 lakh crore

The Centre collected the highest ever Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue in October which stood at Rs 1.07 lakh crore for a single month.

Flood-ravaged Kerala showed a 44% growth in GST collection, the highest among all states.

The total GST revenue collected in the month of October was Rs. 1.07 lakh crore of which Central GST was Rs 16,464 crore, State GST was Rs 22,826 crore and Integrated GST was Rs. 53,419 crore (including Rs. 26,908 crore collected on imports) and Cess amount was Rs 8,000 crore (including Rs 955 crore collected on imports, the finance ministry said.

“The success of GST is lower rates, lesser evasion, higher compliance, only one tax and negligible interference by taxation authorities,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said giving the first-hand information about the revenue collection.

This is only the second time in this financial year that the GST collections have topped Rs 1 lakh crore. Earlier, the Centre had collected Rs 1.03 lakh crore in April this year.

Thereafter, the collections kept declining for five consecutive months till September. The average GST collection in these five months was Rs 95,000 crore per month.

However, the government had budgeted for Rs 1 lakh crore of GST revenues every month.

The total revenue earned by the Centre and the states after regular and provisional settlement in the month of October was Rs 48,954 crore for CGST and Rs 52,934 crore for the SGST, the ministry said.

The October GST revenues were 6.64% more than the previous month when the government collected Rs 94,442 crore.

The states which achieved extraordinary growth in total taxes collected from their assesses include Kerala (44%), Jharkhand (20%), Rajasthan (14%), Uttarakhand (13%) and Maharashtra (11%).

“It appears that GST collections have turned the tide and the increased collections would be on account of the stabilisation of GST processes and the anti-evasion measures taken. The fact that September heralds the festive season has also helped in improving collections,” MS Mani, Partner, Deloitte India told DH.