One year of GST: Confusion over mop-up as officials differ on trends

Government does not put out reconciled tax numbers on accrual-basis, making any trend analysis difficult

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government celebrated one year of GST on July 1. Earlier, in April, Arun Jaitley had rejoiced when monthly gross goods and services tax (GST) collections crossed the Rs 1 trillion mark for March 2018. He called it a “landmark” and claimed that “GST collections would continue to show a positive trend” in the coming months.

But collections for April fell marginally to Rs 940 billion. 

In response to the April collections, finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia then said, “Some people are comparing the April collection figure with March which is not correct. April is traditionally the month of