November GST revenue falls short, will meet annual target: Official

Despite falling short in the GST collections for last month, the government on Tuesday said it is confident of meeting the collection target for the current fiscal.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Foundation Day, the newly-appointed Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said although the November Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections have fallen short of the monthly target by around Rs 4,000 crore, he is confident that the shortfall would be made up in the subsequent months.

Official data last week showed that GST revenue in November fell to Rs 97,637 crore after having breached the Rs 1-lakh crore-mark in October.

"We are short by Rs 4,000 crore this month (November). To arrive at any conclusion, we have to have some more months' data. But we are confident we will be able to achieve our target," Pandey said.

"Our monthly target is around Rs 1 lakh crore. We want to increase it to Rs 1.10 lakh crore."

The 2018-19 Union Budget has estimated an annual GST collection of Rs 13.48 lakh crore.

The Secretary said the Department of Revenue is collecting inputs about entities that are evading taxes. He also said the new simplified GST return forms will be rolled out from April 1 next year.

The new return forms 'Sahaj' and 'Sugam' would replace GSTR-3B summary sales return and GSTR-1 final sale return forms.

The new simplified return form would have two main tables - one for reporting outward supplies and the oter for availing of the input tax credit which would be based on the invoice uploaded by the supplier.

--IANS

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