The government has collected ₹1.56-lakh crore through Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the month of January, Finance Ministry reported on Tuesday. This is second highest ever collection after it collected ₹1.68-lakh crore in April, 2022.

GST collection in the month of January is for goods consumed and services availed in December. Collection number is till 5 pm on January 31. Better collection can be attributed to two factors mainly – improved compliance and higher consumption.

“The revenues in the current financial year upto January are 24 per cent higher than the GST revenues during the same period last year. The revenues for this period from import of goods are 29 per cent higher and from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 22 per cent higher than the revenues from these sources for the same period last year,” a statement issued by the Ministry said.

This is for the third time, in the current financial year, GST collection has crossed ₹1.50-lakh crore mark. During the month of December 2022, 8.3 crore e-way bills were generated, which is the highest so far and it was significantly higher than 7.9 crore e-way bills generated in November 2022.

“Over the last year, various efforts have been made to increase the tax base and improve compliance. The percentage of filing of GST returns (GSTR-3B) and of the statement of invoices (GSTR-1), till the end of the month, has improved significantly over years,” the statement said. In the quarter Oct-Dec 2022, total 2.42 crore GST returns were filed till end of next month as compared to 2.19 crore in the same quarter in the last year.

Out of gross collection, CGST is ₹28,963 crore, SGST is ₹36,730 crore, IGST is ₹79,599 crore (including ₹37,118 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is ₹10,630 crore (including ₹768 crore collected on import of goods). The Government has settled ₹38,507 crore to CGST and ₹32,624 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenue of Centre and the States in the month of January 2023 after regular settlement is ₹67,470 crore for CGST and ₹69,354 crore for the SGST.

Commenting on the number, Vivek Jalan, Partner, Tax Connect Advisory, said that the buoyancy of GST vis-a-vis the erstwhile indirect tax regime is 1:1, considering the drop in the GDP due to the headwinds like Covid-19, Ukraine War, etc. Information sharing between government departments among others, have nudged higher tax compliance through technology and artificial intelligence.

“The government is expecting that GST collections should drive the tax revenues going forward. As India grows, the GST regime is expected to firm up further with most sophisticated tools and data sharing. Hence trade and industry is looking to ride the India growth story have to ensure robust GST compliances,” he said.

Parag Mehta, Partner with NA Shah Associates said GST collections for the month of January is the second highest from inception till date. Even the economic survey has reflected the increase in GST registration. So increase in compliance, awareness and taxpayers the collections have increased substantially. “If there are further relaxation or amnesty in budget, collections till March would increase multi-fold,” he said