Centre upbeat on Rs 1.5-trillion GST revenue every month from October

Government officials are bullish that the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) will be able to garner goods and services tax (GST) revenues of over Rs 1.5 trillion every month from October onwards. This comes at a time when GST collections have been falling behind the Rs 1.5-trillion mark for the last four months.

“For the last couple of months, we have been trying very hard to reach that milestone of Rs 1.5 trillion. But we have been failing a bit sometimes by Rs 2,000 crore or Rs 6,000 crore. The revenues that we will collect in October will come on November 1. I am sure that the CBIC will get Rs 1.5-trillion revenue for the government from that month onwards,” said Tarun Bajaj, revenue secretary, at an event in Mumbai.

GST collections were to the tune of Rs 1.43 trillion in August; in July it was around 1.49 trillion. June saw GST collections of Rs 1.45 trillion, and in May, it was Rs 1.4 trillion. Collections topped in April, with Rs 1.67 trillion. This is an all-time high.  

The Press Information Bureau in a release said CBIC’s target is to deliver revenue to the tune of Rs 1.5 lakh crore regularly from the month of November. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, however, did not specify any target for the CBIC officials. She appreciated the efforts put in by them to generate more revenue for the government.

“Steadily every month, you are performing and it is evident in the form of the revenue collected,” Sitharaman said.

She said the Prime Minister has made a special mention of how sound the economy is, and how well it is growing. Also, how month after month, officials are generating high GST revenues.

Sitharaman also stressed on the importance of adequate training to tax officials on better utilisation of artificial intelligence, data deep dive and internet of things (IoT).

It would help them plug revenue leakages that are happening, causing a loss to the exchequer.

“I have requested that training be given on better utilisation of artificial intelligence, data deep dive, IoT so that we are able to use technology to detect where revenue leakages are happening. We have to see where mischief makers or people are gaming the system by claiming wrong refunds, creating shell companies or colluding with some rare black sheep in the system. This is causing loss to the exchequer,” finance minister said while addressing the tax officials.

There has been an understanding, which has been discussed with the revenue secretary and the chairman of CBIC. Soon we will be putting through such a training so that each one of you feel comfortable using technology to assist you to make sure leakages are plugged, she said.

She said if each officer, especially the junior ones, is given adequate training in better utilisation of technology, it will be easy to see where tax evasion is happening, where fraudulent claims are coming from, and how to plug them.