GST collection revenue dips by 3% to Rs 80,808 crore in November

The government on Tuesday released the GST collection numbers for the month of November, which have been received till December 25. As per the latest data, the total Goods and Service Tax collection has been Rs 80,808 crore. There has been a continuous decline in the Goods and Service Tax collection for the second straight month. A sum of Rs 83,346 crore was collected as the total revenue collection under the GST for October, received during November. The revenue collected under GST during October for September was Rs 95,131 crore, while the corresponding figure for August was of Rs 93,141 crore.

The government data suggests around 99.01 lakh taxpayers have been registered under the GST so far till December 25, of which 16.60 lakh are composition dealers who need to file returns every quarter. Around 53.06 lakh returns have been filed for November till December 25. Of the Rs. 80,808 crore collected under the GST up to December 25, around Rs 13,089 crore have been collected as the CGST, while Rs 18,650 crore have been collected as the SGST. Around Rs 41,270 crore went into the government coffers through IGST and Rs. 7,798 crore through compensation cess.

Further,  Rs 10,348 crore are being transferred from the IGST to CGST accounts, and Rs 14,488 crore from IGST to SGST account by way of settlement of funds on account of cross utilisation of the IGST credit for payment of CGST and SGST, respectively or due to inter-state B2C transactions. Thus, a total amount of Rs 24,836 crore is being transferred from IGST to CGST/SGST account by way of settlement.

Earlier, the finance ministry, headed by Arun Jaitley, had said the reason for the downward trend in the tax revenue under the GST can be attributed to a number of factors. One of the reasons is that in the first three months, there was an additional flow of the IGST due to the first time requirement of paying IGST on transfer of goods from one state to another state even within the same company. As and when the final transaction of these goods takes place, the credit for IGST is being utilized for payment of SGST and CGST and therefore, the inflow of new taxes is low, it explained.

Another reason for the decline in revenue is that since the overall incidence of taxes on most of the commodities has come down under GST, it would naturally have some implication on the revenues of the government as well. Besides, the tax administration of the GST is now based on self-declared tax returns, in which the assessee decides on his own how much tax liability he has and claims input tax credit as per his own calculations.