GST Collections In A Downward Slide, Fall Below Rs 1 Lakh Crore

On a day when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) entered its third year in force, the collection figures released by the government seemed to be a cause of concern for the government as the collection in June fell below the Rs 1 lakh mark after three consecutive months of crossing that threshold.

The GST collection in June -- for transactions made in May -- was estimated to be Rs 99,939 crore. While this is only marginally below the psychological threshold of Rs 1 lakh crore, but the cause of concern is the downward slide that the GST revenue seems to be since April, when it peaked to almost Rs 1.14 lakh crore. In May, this came down to Rs 1.003 crore and finally fell below Rs 1 lakh crore in June.

In fact, it is the first time since February that the GST collection figures have fallen below Rs 1 lakh crore. Then, the total revenue collected under GST was Rs 97,247 crore.

However, compared to last year, the collections this year show improvement. Revenue in June, 2018 was Rs 95,610 crore and the revenue during June, 2019 reflects a growth of 4.52 per cent over that.

As per the figures released by the government on Monday, out of Rs 99,939 crore collected in June, Rs 18,366 crore was Central GST (CGST), Rs 25,343 crore was State GST (SGST) and Rs 47,772 crore was Integrated GST (IGST). Rs 8,457 crore was collected as cess. The total number of GSTR 3B returns filed in June were 74.38 lakh.

The Finance Ministry said that it had settled Rs 18,169 crore to CGST and Rs 13,613 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. So the total revenue earned by Central government and the state governments after regular settlement in the month of June was Rs 36,535 crore for CGST and Rs 38,956 crore for the SGST.