Goods and Services Tax gross revenue crossed the one lakh crore mark for the second successive month, with a collection of ₹1.03 lakh crore in December. This is almost 9% higher than the December 2018 GST collection of ₹94,726 crore, according to an official Finance Ministry statement issued on Wednesday.
While the December 2019 collection of ₹1,03,184 crore is slightly lower than the November 2019 collection of ₹1,03,492 crore, it does signal a trend of recovery after gross GST revenue dipped below the one lakh crore mark for the previous three months.
Tax analysts say the improvement reflects higher consumption during the festive season in November, as well as the government’s increased focus on corporate compliance.
The amount still falls short of the ambitious ₹1.1 lakh crore monthly target the Centre set last month for the remainder of the fiscal year, and the improvement is unlikely to be enough to enable the government to reach its GST revenue targets for the year. The Centre had budgeted for ₹6.63 lakh crore in net GST revenue for the current financial year 2019-20, out of which it collected about 50% in the first eight months.
For the first time, the Finance Ministry released a State-wise break-up of GST collection from domestic transactions, which shows a 16% growth from the same period a year ago. Apart from Jharkhand and Lakshadweep, all the rest of the states and union territories saw a growth in domestic GST collections in comparison to December 2018. Some of the north-eastern states have seen the highest rates of growth, with Arunachal posting a 124% increase, followed by Nagaland (88%), Manipur (64%) and Mizoram (60%). Jammu and Kashmir saw 40% growth.
This comes at a time when a number of State governments have been vocal in their complaints of declining GST revenue and demands for pending compensation payments from the Centre.
“GST collections crossing ₹1 trillion for two months in a row with many States reporting an in crease in their month-on-month collections would make it a little easier to bridge the fiscal gap and reduce the dependence on compensation cess,” said M.S. Mani, partner, Deloitte India.
The GST collection on imports continued to contract, although the negative growth of -10% is a slight improvement of the previous month’s rate of -13%.
The gross collections include CGST of ₹19,962 crore, SGST of ₹26,792 crore, IGST of ₹48,099 crore (including ₹21,295 crore collected on imports) and cess of ₹8,331 crore (including ₹847 crore collected on imports), according to the statement.
