GST collection slides below Rs 94,000 crore

Revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) dropped to Rs 93,960 crore in August as against Rs 96,483 crore collected in July.

The government said a major factor for the dip in tax revenues could be "probable postponement" of sale of items on which tax rate was reduced by the GST Council in its July 21 meeting. The reduced rates were to come into effect from July 27.

"Since it would have taken some time for the market to pass on the benefit of reduced taxes, consumers might have postponed their decision to buy, expecting the benefit. The actual impact of reduction of rate of taxes would be observed only from next month onwards as the rate reduction would have got affected only in last few days of the month," the Finance Ministry said.

It added that even past trends show that August collections are lower than the July collections.

"Even past trend of indirect tax collection shows that while July collections are 8.2 per cent of the total annual collections, August collections are at a lower level of 7.7 per cent of the total annual collections. This is another reason for lower collections during the month of August as compared to that in July," it said.

As per the data released by the Ministry, the total gross GST revenue collected in the month of August (for the month of July) stood at Rs 93,960 crore, of which Central GST was Rs 15,303 crore, State GST Rs 21,154 crore and Integrated GST was Rs 49,876 crore. An additional Rs 7,628 crore was collected as cess.

The total number of GST returns filed for the month of July up to August stood at 67 lakh, slightly higher than 66 lakh returns filed in July (for June).

The last date of filing return of July has been extended till October for Kerala.

"The total revenue earned by the Central and state governments after settlement including provisional settlement of Rs 12,000 crore in August is Rs 36,963 crore for Central GST and Rs 41,136 crore for State GST. For the bi-monthly period June-July, compensation of Rs 14,930 crore has been released to the states," an official statement said.

--IANS

vv/nir