Monthly GST revenue at Rs 1.50 lakh cr to be new normal next fiscal: CBIC chief

'We will focus on increasing the taxpayer base,' the CBIC chief said

Monthly GST collection is expected to average around Rs 1.50 lakh crore and it will be the ‘new normal’ in FY24 in view of concerted efforts to check evasion and bring new businesses within the GST net, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) chief Vivek Johri said on Thursday.

In an interview with PTI, Johri said the GST and Customs revenue collection numbers as given in Budget 2023-24 are realistic based on nominal GDP growth and import trends, respectively and the indirect tax collection target set for next fiscal will be achieved.

Johri said CBIC has drawn up a strategy to augment GST mop-up by way of stricter audit and scrutiny of tax returns, enforcement action against fake billing and input tax credit claims.

“We will focus on increasing the taxpayer base. Even though the growth in taxpayer base has been quite good, we have more than doubled the number of taxpayers from the time we started GST, we feel there are some sectors which have much more potential to increase the taxpayer population.

“So I feel we have not reached the saturation level and there is scope for increasing the revenue,” Johri said.

GST collection in current fiscal year is likely to average around Rs 1.45 lakh crore. The mop-up in January came in as the second highest ever at around Rs 1.56 lakh crore, the highest being Rs 1.68 lakh crore in April 2022.

Asked if in next fiscal year, Rs 1.50 lakh crore could be the new normal for monthly GST collection, Johri said “Yes, that I’m confident of”. “There is further scope for growth in GST revenues.”

The 2023-24 Budget has projected 12 per cent growth in GST revenue at Rs 9.56 lakh crore. The revised estimate for current fiscal pegs GST mop-up at Rs 8.54 lakh crore, up from Rs 7.80 lakh crore originally estimated in the Budget last year.