GST Collections Recover A Little, Worrying Signs Remain

New Delhi, November 1: In a respite for the government, revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) fared better in October and stood at Rs 95,380 Crore, after falling to a 19-month low of Rs 91,916 Crore in September.

However, that remained the only positive sign as the collections remained below the Rs 1 Lakh mark for the third month in a row, while in another worrying sign, the number of returns filed also decreased in October. While 75.94 lakh GSTR 3B returns were filed in September, returns filed in October stood at 73.83 lakh.

Also, the worrying trend of collections being lower than the corresponding period of last year continued. Last year in October, GST collections were over Rs 1 Lakh Crore. At Rs 95,380 Crore, October’s collections are 5.29 per cent lower in comparison. This is the second occurence this fiscal, with September being the only other month when collections were lower than the corresponding period of last year.

Subdued GST collections have been a cause of concern for the government, which is facing loss of revenue on direct tax collections as well, after the cut in the Corporate Tax rate.

According to the government, out of Rs 95,380 Crore collected as GST, Central-GST (CGST) was Rs 17,582 Crore, State-GST (SGST) was Rs 23,674 Crore and Integrated-GST (IGST) was Rs 46,517 Crore. Around Rs 7,607 Crore was collected as cess during the month, the Finance Ministry said.

“However, during April-October, 2019 vis-à-vis 2018, the domestic component has shown 6.74 per cent growth while the GST on imports has shown negative growth and the total collection has grown by 3.38 per cent,” it said.

The government has settled Rs 20,642 Crore to CGST and Rs 13,971 Crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement.

“The total revenue earned by the central government and the state governments after regular settlement in the month of October is Rs 38,224 Crore for CGST and Rs 37,645 Crore for the SGST,” the government said.