NEW DELHICollections from Goods & Services Tax (GST) in August dropped to a three-month low at Rs 1.59 lakh crore, data released by the Finance Ministry on Friday showed. However, it is 11 per cent higher than last August. Experts expect collections to grow during the remaining parts of the year.
“The revenues for the month of August, 2023 are 11 per cent higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year. During the month, revenue from import of goods was 3 per cent higher and the revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) are 14 per cent higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year,” a Finance Ministry statement said.
GST collections in August are related to invoices related to goods and services for July. The statement further said that out of gross GST collection, CGST (Central Goods & Services Tax) contributed over Rs 28000 crore, while SGST (State Goods & Services Tax) and IGST 9Integrated Goods & Services tax) had a share of over Rs 35000 crore and Rs 83000 crore respectively. Cess provided around RS 11700 crore.
Commenting on the latest collection number, M S Mani, Partner with Deloitte India, said: “All the key manufacturing and consuming states have shown an increase ranging from 10 per cent to 23 per cent indicating that the overall increase in domestic consumption is fairly widespread across states”.
Vivek Jalan, Partner with Tax Connect Advisory, felt the Central Government’s Make in India scheme has also started to show results as domestic GST collections show a growth of 14 per cent and import collections show an increase of only 3 per cent. However, more needs to be done to propel domestic consumption further. For example, he said, “the customs duty rate of certain finished goods (like lithium ion cells) is far lesser than the Customs Duty of Raw Materials.”