GST collection dips by Rs 11,785 crore in November

The government's total collection under the Goods and Services Tax dropped by more than Rs 11,000 crore for the month of November, mainly on account cut in levies on most of the commodities.

According to the Finance Ministry figures, the total GST collection till November 27 was Rs 83,346 crore as against the October revenue of Rs 95,131 crore.

"A total of 95.9 lakh taxpayers have been registered under GST so far, of which 15.1 lakh are composition dealers which are required to file returns every quarter.... 50.1 lakh returns have been filed for the month of October till 26th November," the ministry said.

It said that the Centre had released a compensation of Rs 10,806 crore to states for July and August.

"A compensation of Rs 13,695 crore for September and October is being released," the ministry statement said.

The ministry said the lower realisations in GST were mainly on account of lowering of taxes on most of the commodities and changes in the manner in which the taxes were collected.

Initially, Integrated GST (IGST) was paid on transfer of goods from one state to another. "As and when the final transaction of these goods takes place, the credit for IGST is being utilized for payment of SGST and CGST and therefore, the inflow of new taxes is low," it said.

Also, since the overall incidence of taxes on most of the commodities has come down under GST, it would naturally have some implication on the revenues of the government, the ministry added.

"The states' revenues have been fully protected taking base year revenue as 2015-16 and providing a projected revenue growth rate of 14%," the finance ministry said.

As per data available, GST collection in July was over Rs 95,000 crore while in August, the figure was over Rs 91,000 crore. September GST collection stood at over Rs 92,150 crore.

"The tax administration of GST is now based on self-declared Tax Return, in which the assesse decides on his own how much tax liability he has and claims input tax credit as per his own calculations," the ministry said.