Collections from Goods & Services Tax in November reached over ₹1.45-lakh crore. Though the lowest in three months and lower by three per cent than October numbers, it was still 11 per cent higher than last November. Also, this is the ninth successive month that the revenues have crossed ₹1.4-lakh crore.
“During the month, revenues from import of goods was 20 per cent higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are eight per cent higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year,” a statement issued by the Finance Ministry said.
GST collection in November is for goods consumed and services availed of in October.
The statement further said that the government has settled ₹33,997 crore to CGST and ₹28,538 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenue of Centre and the States after regular settlements in November is ₹59,678 crore for CGST and ₹61,189 crore for the SGST. In addition, the Centre had also released ₹17,000 crore as GST compensation to States/UTs in November.
According to Saurabh Agarwal, Tax Partner with EY India, nine successive months of ₹1.40-lakh crore plus collection indicate that there is no effect of recession on the Indian economy so far. “The IGST on imports has been down by almost 6-8 per cent this month compared with the last four months (except October 2022 which was a festival month) which is an indicator that India is moving towards a more self-reliant economy,” he said.
‘No recession’
Vivek Jalan, Partner with Tax Connect Advisory, said the Budgeted GST Revenue for the Centre for 2022-23 was ₹ 7.8-lakh crore, of which CGST was ₹6.6-lakh crore and Compensation Cess was ₹1.2-lakh crore. It means that the budgeted GST collection of the country is ₹14.4-lakh crore approximately. Till the month of November, ₹11.91-lakh crore has already been done.
“Even if one takes conservative estimate of ₹5-lakh crore in the next four months, then the fiscal year would end with an uptick of ₹2.5-lakh crore approx which is a 17 per cent growth over budget. The increment of GST revenues would mean an incremental ₹0.8-lakh crore more in the hands of the Centre just from GST, which also means that the GST taxpayers would be contributing to a reduction of fiscal deficit from 6.4 to 6.1 per cent ceteris paribus,” he said.
Ankur Gupta, Practice Leader Indirect Tax with SW India, said ₹1.4-lakh crore seems to be the “new normal” considering the government has achieved it since the beginning of the year. “While credit for this goes to an increase in tax base and transparency due to e-invoicing, a good portion of it may be attributable to recoveries being made due to aggressive audit/scrutiny done by authorities for the last five years. It would be good to see these numbers once the positions are streamlined and a major chunk of the revenue comes from monthly compliances,” he said.