India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime delivered its second-highest monthly revenues of ₹1,72,129 crore in January, as per data collected by Wednesday evening and shared by the Finance Ministry.
While the ultimate overall GST tally for January is likely to be higher as taxpayers will be able to file returns till the midnight of January 31, the revenues reported till 5 pm reflected a 10.4% uptick, a tad faster than the three-month low of 10.3% recorded in December 2023.
On a sequential basis, January’s revenues are 4.4% above December’s ₹1,64,882 crore collections, snapping a two-month streak of month-on-month contractions in the GST kitty. Experts said that the GST authorities’ focus on completing audits and probes for past years’ dues also provided a fillip to January’s revenues which are linked to transactions undertaken in December 2023.
“Notably, this is the second highest monthly collection ever and marks the third month in this financial year with collection of ₹1.70 lakh crore or more… Final collection for the month would be higher,” the Finance Ministry said.
In April 2023, GST collections had crossed a record ₹1.87 lakh crore aided by year-end compliances, while October had clocked a tad over ₹1.72 lakh crore which was the second-highest monthly inflow at the time.
“Coming on the Interim Budget eve, the second highest ever collections would provide even more headroom for embarking upon the next stage of GST reforms,” remarked MS Mani, partner at Deloitte India.
“During the April 2023-January 2024 period, cumulative gross GST collection witnessed 11.6% year-on-year growth, reaching ₹16.69 lakh crore, as against ₹14.96 lakh crore collected in the same period of the previous year,” the ministry noted.
Of January’s GST intake so far, the government has settled ₹43,552 crore to the Central GST pool and ₹37,257 crore to the State GST kitty from the Integrated GST collections during the month.
As the complete data for the month is still awaited, the ministry did not share details on the revenue growth trends from domestic transactions and goods imports, as well as the State-wise performance.
