GST collection in Jan crosses Rs 1.3-trn mark for fourth time in FY22: Govt

Revenues for month of January 2022 were 15% higher than GST revenues in the same month last year and 25% higher than the GST revenues in January 2020

GST collection in January crossed Rs 1.38 trillion in January, a growth of 15 per cent over the year-ago period, on pick up in economic activity and anti-evasion measures, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.

Total number of GSTR-3B returns filed up to January 30, 2022, is 10.5 million, which includes 3.6 million quarterly returns.

January is the fourth month when Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection has crossed the Rs 1.3 trillion-mark, and seventh month in a row when it crossed the Rs 1 trillion-mark.

In December the collection was over Rs 1.29 trillion.

"The gross GST revenue collected in the month of January 2022 till 3 PM on January 31, 2022, is Rs 1,38,394 crore of which CGST is Rs 24,674 crore, SGST is Rs 32,016 crore, IGST is Rs 72,030 crore (including Rs 35,181 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 9,674 crore (including Rs 517 crore collected on import of goods)," the ministry said.

The highest monthly GST collection has been Rs 1.39 trillion in the month of April 2021.

The revenues for the month of January 2022 are 15 per cent higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year and 25 per cent higher than the GST revenues in January 2020.

"Coupled with economic recovery, anti-evasion activities, especially action against fake billers have been contributing to the enhanced GST. The improvement in revenue has also been due to various rate rationalisation measures undertaken by the council to correct inverted duty structure," the ministry said.

It is expected that the positive trend in the revenues will continue in the coming months as well, it added.

During the month, revenue from import of goods was 26 per cent higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 12 per cent higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.

About 67 million e-way bills were generated in the month of December 2021, which is 14 per cent higher than 58 million e-way bills generated in the month of November 2021.

Deloitte India Partner M S Mani said the fact that the collections are now inching closer to the Rs 1.4 trillion monthly mark leads to expectations of high but stable GST collections in the FY'23 budgetary exercise.

"The continuing increase in collections both on domestic transactions and import transactions viewed together with the recent increases in export revenues, would provide more fiscal headroom in the FY23 budget calculations," Mani said.