More revenue key impact of lower GST rates: Jaitley

The most significant impact of the lower rates under GST has been the increase in collections, also from direct taxes, which will permit further rationalising of the rates under the new indirect tax regime, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Sunday.

In a video address shown at an event here to mark the first anniversary of the roll out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Jaitley said that with the input tax credit mechanism ensuring that proper disclosures are made even of income tax, direct tax collections were showing a rise.

"For the first quarter, we are seeing that advance personal income tax has increased by 44 per cent and corporate tax rose by 17 per cent.

"When we look at the GST performance in the first nine months, the total amount collected is Rs 8.2 lakh crore, which, if annualised, is Rs 11 lakh crore, yielding a revenue growth of 11.9 per cent over the indirect tax system earlier.

"There is an increase in tax buoyancy of 1.2 per cent, which was unknown previously despite rates being lowered for consumers," he said.

Jaitley also said that as the tax collection from GST goes up, the four-slab rate structure will be rationalised further and that the government aims to bring most of the items in the highest 28 per cent slab to lower tax brackets.

At the event earlier, Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia announced that the GST revenue collection in June at Rs 95,610 crore was higher than the average monthly collection of Rs 89,885 crore during 2017-18.

The collection in May amounted to Rs 94,016 crore.

--IANS

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