Over 10 mn businesses registered under GST; January collection at Rs 880 bn

Over 10.3 million businesses have registered under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime and the implementation of the biggest indirect tax reform has been smooth so far, Parliament was informed on Friday.

As on March 2, a total of 1,03,99,305 taxpayers are registered under GST, which include 6.4 million taxpayers who have migrated from the erstwhile tax regimes and 3.9 million who have taken new registration under GST, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said.

"As a result of the sustained efforts made by the government to make GST trade friendly, the implementation of GST in the country has been smooth so far," Shukla said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

GST was rolled out from July 1, 2017, and based on the feedback received from stakeholders the GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state counterparts, has made a host of changes in GST norms and procedures.

GST has subsumed over a dozen local taxes, including excise duty, service tax and VAT.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has set up a national call centre to reply to queries which is functional round the clock, Shukla said.

"The tax payer can raise a query via toll free phone number 18001200232 or by sending an email to cbecmitra.helpdesk@icegate.gov.in," he said.

In addition, GST Network has set up a help desk with phone number 0120-4888999 to answer software related queries.

Shukla said the revenue collections from Central GST, State GST, Integrated GST and compensation cess was Rs 935 billion for July, Rs 930 billion for August, Rs 951 billion for September and Rs 859 billion for October.

The mop up for November stood at Rs 837 billion, December (Rs 889 billion) and January (Rs 880 billion).