The latest report released by the Ministry of Finance reflected a positive response from indirect tax receipts sphere at the end of the fiscal year 2018-19. The aggregate GST collection in March jumped to ₹ 1 lakh crore benchmark, the highest since this uniform indirect tax reform structure was introduced in July 2017. As per the official data, even after the regular rate rationalisation measures, GST revenue in March has sharply elevated to ₹1,06,577 crore merely an increment of ₹ 14,410 crore or 15.6% over the receipts in the same month last year making the gross annual receipt ₹ 11.77 lakh crore for this fiscal year.
The gross GST revenue of ₹ 1,06,577 crore for March composed of CGST ₹ 20,353 crore, SGST ₹ 27,520 crore, IGST ₹ 50,418 crore (including ₹ 23,521 crore collected on imports) and Cess ₹ 8,286 crore (including ₹ 891 crore collected on imports). Further, ₹ 17,261 crore has been been transferred from IGST to CGST account, ₹ 13,689 crore transferred from IGST to SGST account by the way of regular settlement of funds on account of cross utilisation of IGST credit for payment and balance IGST available with the Centre in equal proportion between centre and states for provisional settlement. The revenue for the last quarter in the year 2018-19 is 14.3% higher than the revenue collected during the same period last year. Meanwhile, the GSTR-3B filed till March was 75.95 lakh.
Interesting, it was the fourth time when GST revenue has crossed ₹ 1 lakh crore after April, October and January. As a result, the average monthly GST collection in 2018-19 stood at ₹ 98,114 crore indicating synchronised growth of almost 9.2% than 2017-18.
Undoubtedly, the systemic revenue growth resulted due to further standardisation of filling procedures, effective modular administration, intelligence analytics, plugging the leaks and transformed channel design. In addition, the expansion of manufacturing and consumption sector certainly augmented the collection numbers showing sustainable achievements.
On anticipating, analysing and articulating the latest report released by the Ministry of Finance on GST collection in April first week, we can briefly interpret four major observations:-
- Now, majority of the identified tax payers are complied with the frequent GST reform measures.
- On the basis of the past strata, it is expected that the monthly GST collection in the fiscal year 2019-20 will surpass ₹ 1 lakh crore.
- GST council may make further changes in the rate slab to benefit the people.
- The incremental collection of GST revenue will assist government in meeting the fiscal deficit targets.
Vipin Vihari Ram Tripathi
Chief Adviser
Finance and Economics Think Council
Banaras Hindu University