The Centre has released ₹81,043 crore as GST compensation to States for April-September 2019, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur said on Tuesday.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, he said GST compensation cess collection had shown an upward trend since October 2019.
GST compensation cess of ₹7,607 crore was collected in October, ₹7,727 crore in November, ₹8,331 crore in December and ₹8,637 crore in January.
For 2019-20, the amount targeted to be collected from cess in GST was ₹1.09 lakh crore. Of this, ₹70,534 crore has been collected between April-December 2019.
The amount of GST compensation released to States for April-September 2019 stood at ₹81,043 crore, Mr. Thakur said.
For 2018-19 fiscal, the net collection of GST compensation cess stood at ₹95,081 crore as against the target of ₹90,000 crore. For full fiscal, the government had released ₹81,141 crore to states as compensation.
For 2017-18, the net collection from cess stood at ₹62,612 crore, as against the target of ₹61,331 crore. The compensation amount released to states was ₹48,785 crore.
Under GST law, States were guaranteed to be paid for any loss of revenue in the first five years of GST implementation, which came into force on July 1, 2017.
The shortfall is calculated assuming a 14% annual growth in GST collections by States over the base year of 2015-16.
“For providing such compensation to States, compensation cess is being levied on certain luxury and demerit goods as per provisions in Section 8 of the GST (Compensation to States) Act, 2017, and compensation cess is being credited into a non-lapsable Fund known as Goods and Services Tax Compensation Fund which forms part of the Public Account of India,” Mr. Thakur said.
Fraudulent claims
As many as 634 cases of fraudulent GST refund claim by exporters amounting ₹1,912 crore had been detected by the central tax authorities between July 2017 and January 2020, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Mr. Thakur said of this, ₹238.97 crore had been recovered by the Central GST authorities from the entities which claimed the fraudulent refunds.
A total of 35 persons had been arrested by the CGST authorities, he added.
“The government has taken measures to use data analytics to identify risky taxpayers and verify them before sanction of refunds,” Mr. Thakur added.
