GST collections hit five-month excessive, Govt says reveals economic system recovering

GROSS GOODS and Services Tax (GST) income collections in September — for gross sales in August — rose to a five-month excessive of Rs 1,17,010 crore, up 22.5 per cent year-on-year, based on newest information.
Although the tempo of income development slowed from the earlier month because of a waning low base impact from final yr, common month-to-month GST collections within the second quarter this yr (Rs 1.15 lakh crore) improved by 5 per cent from the primary quarter (Rs 1.10 lakh crore).
Also, month-to-month collections have continued to enhance because of a pickup in financial exercise, alongside elevated compliance by distributors of larger firms. This is anticipated to enhance going forward because of the festive season.
Significantly, a majority of key manufacturing states, together with Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, reported a development of over 20 per cent in comparison with final yr.
“This clearly indicates that the economy is recovering at a fast pace. Coupled with economic growth, anti-evasion activities, especially action against fake billers, have also been contributing to the enhanced GST collections. It is expected that the positive trend in the revenues will continue and the second half of the year will post higher revenues,” the Finance Ministry mentioned in an announcement.
GST income had grown 29.6 per cent YoY in August — it got here in at Rs 86,449 crore in August 2020, after which it rose to Rs 95,480 crore in September 2020. In September 2020, GST revenues had grown 4 per cent over the income of Rs 91,916 crore in September 2019.
Yet, general income buoyancy beneath GST is seen as a priority, particularly after the legally mandated compensation to states for income shortfall from GST implementation involves an finish in June 2022.
The Finance Ministry had not too long ago constituted two ministerial panels as step one in direction of the primary structural overhaul after its July 2017 rollout. A “review” of the present slab construction has been integrated within the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the panels, based on an order dated September 24.
The panel’s transient incorporates an overarching mandate: an analysis of “special rates” inside the tax construction, rationalisation measures that embody “a merger of tax rate slabs aimed at simplifying the rate structure”, a evaluate of situations of inverted obligation construction and an identification of potential sources of evasion.

The GST has 5 key tax slabs: zero, 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent together with 0.25 per cent and three per cent charge for valuable/ semi-precious stones and gold/ silver, respectively. A compensation cess, ranging between 1 per cent to 290 per cent, is levied on demerit and luxurious items over and above the topmost charge of 28 per cent.
A merger of 5 per cent and 12 per cent slabs or 12 per cent and 18 per cent slabs has been deliberated upon earlier as nicely however has not been taken up formally for a choice.
Out of the entire Rs 1.17 lakh crore assortment in September, CGST is Rs 20,578 crore, SGST is Rs 26,767 crore, IGST is Rs 60,911 crore (together with Rs 29,555 crore collected on import of products) and cess is Rs 8,754 crore (together with Rs 623 crore collected on import of products).
The Centre has additionally launched compensation of Rs 22,000 crore to states.

M S Mani, Senior Director, Deloitte India mentioned: “The GST collection figures indicate that growth of the economy is leading to stable collections, which would help in achieving the fiscal deficit target of 6.8% of GDP. Most of the key manufacturing states reporting a growth of 20% plus compared to last year does indicate that an economic revival is clearly in progress across key states.”
Pratik Jain, Partner, Price Waterhouse & Co LLP, mentioned: “Apart from the economy doing better and anti-evasion measures of the government, many large companies are nudging their vendors to be more compliant. In many cases, the payment of vendors is linked with updating of their invoices on the GST portal and timely filing of returns.”