March GST collections at nearly Rs 1.24 trillion, an all-time high

The government said that the GST revenues were above Rs 1 trillion for the last six months and a steep increasing trend over this period are clear indicators of rapid economic recovery post pandemic

At nearly Rs 1.24 trillion, the goods and services tax (GST) revenue collections in March 2021 were the highest since the tax system's introduction in July 2017, government said on Thursday. Also, the collections were up 27 per cent when compared with the year-ago period.

"GST revenues during March 2021 are the highest since introduction of GST. In line with the trend of recovery in the GST revenues over past five months, the revenues for the month of March 2021 are 27 per cent higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year," the ministry of finance said in a statement. 

The ministry said that the GST revenues were above Rs 1 trillion for the last six months and a steep increasing trend over this period are clear indicators of rapid economic recovery post pandemic. 

"Closer monitoring against fake-billing, deep data analytics using data from multiple sources including GST, Income-tax and Customs IT systems and effective tax administration have also contributed to the steady increase in tax revenue over last few months," it said.

Of the total revenue collected, CGST is Rs 22,973 crore, SGST is Rs 29,329 crore, IGST is Rs 62,842 crore (including Rs 31,097 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess is Rs 8,757 crore (including Rs 935 crore collected on import of goods).

The government has settled Rs 21,879 crore to CGST and Rs 17,230 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, Centre has also settled Rs 28,000 crore as IGST ad-hoc settlement in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and states. 

The total revenue of Centre and the states after regular and ad-hoc settlements in March is Rs 58,852 crore for CGST and Rs 60,559 crore for the SGST. Centre has also released a compensation of Rs 30,000 crore during the month of March 2021.

During the month, revenues from import of goods was 70 per cent higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 17 per cent higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.

The GST revenue witnessed growth rate of (-) 41 per cent, (-) 8 per cent, 8 per cent and 14 per cent in the first, second, third and fourth quarters of this financial year, respectively, as compared to the same period last year, clearly indicating the trend in recovery of GST revenues as well as the economy as a whole.