GST Collection For September Rises To Rs 95,380 Crore

The government’s goods and services tax collection for September rose after dropping to a 19-month low for the previous month.

The GST for September, collected in October, stood at Rs 95,380 crore compared with Rs 91,916 crore for August and Rs 98,202 crore for July. That’s a year-on-year decline of 5 percent and 3 percent lower than the monthly average of Rs 98,114 crore for FY19.

“Lower GST collections in the past few months possibly indicate the decline in consumer spending,” said MS Mani, a partner at Deloitte India. The trend of lower-than-expected GST collections continuing in festive month, according to Mani, is reflective of the slowdown in the economy.

GST collections rose after two months but remained below Rs 1 lakh crore amid a slowing economy, held back by a decline in consumption and a liquidity crisis in the non-bank lending sector.

While there is a mere 4 percent increase in GST collections over the last month, the fall compared to the budgeted target continues to be a challenge owing to a decline in consumption and overall economic slowdown, Krishan Arora, a partner at Grant Thornton India LLP, said.

The government’s budgeted target of GST collection for the ongoing financial year is nearly Rs 12.17 lakh crore.

But Abhishek Jain, a partner at EY India, said with festivities in October, GST collections should rise and meet expectations in the coming month.

The number of GST returns filed in October marginally fell over the previous month. The total number of GSTR-3B returns filed for the month of September, by Oct. 31, stood at 73.83 lakh compared with 75.94 lakh filed for August and 75.80 lakh for July, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Finance.

Break-up of tax collected under various heads:

• Central GST: Rs 17,582 crore
• State GST: Rs 23,674 crore
• Integrated GST: Rs 46,517 crore
• Compensation Cess: Rs 7,607 crore

Integrated GST is settled between the states and centre, based on consumption in the respective state. From the IGST collected during the month, Rs 20,642 crore was transferred as central GST and Rs 13,971 crore was settled as SGST.

Total revenue earned by central and state governments after the settlement was Rs 38,224 crore and Rs 37,645 crore, respectively, the statement said.