Coronavirus effect: GST collection slips below Rs 1 lakh crore mark in March, hits 5-month low

Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection has slipped below Rs 1 lakh crore mark in March, hitting five-month low of Rs 97,597 lakh crore, due to impact of coronavirus outbreak on the economy. In the last four months, GST collection had crossed Rs 1 lakh crore mark each time thanks to tax department's anti-evasion steps.

GST revenue in March reported a decline of 4 per cent over the same month last year. The collection, however, was lower than Rs 1.05 lakh crore in February 2020. The total number of GSTR-3B Returns filed for the month of February up to March 31, 2020 was 76.5 lakh.

The GST collection for March include CGST (Central GST) of Rs 19,183 crore, while SGST (State GST) and IGST (integrated goods and services tax) have been recorded at Rs 25,601 crore and 44,508 crore, respectively. Cess for the month stands at Rs 8,306 crore.

"The gross GST revenue collected in the month of March, 2020 is Rs. 97,597 crore of which CGST is Rs 19,183 crore, SGST is Rs 25,601 crore, IGST is Rs 44,508 crore (including Rs. 18,056 crore collected on imports) and Cess is Rs 8,306 crore (including Rs 841 crore collected on imports)," according to a statement released by Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.

Taking into account the GST collected from import of goods, the total revenue during March has decreased by 8 per cent in comparison to the revenue during March, 2019. During last month, the GST on import of goods has shown a negative growth of (-) 23 per cent as compared to March 2019.

For the full financial year 2019-20 (FY20), the GST for domestic transaction has reported a growth of 8 per cent over the revenues during last year. During the year, GST from import on goods fell down by 8 per cent on the yearly basis. Overall, gross GST revenues  (domestic + import) rose at 4 per cent over the same period last year.

As per the statement, the government settled Rs 19,718 crore to CGST and Rs 14,915 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, Centre has also apportioned unsettled balance IGST of Rs 6,000 crore on ad-hoc basis in the ratio of 50:50 between centre and States/UTs. The total revenue earned by central government and the state governments after regular settlement in the month of March was Rs 41,901 crore for CGST and Rs 43,516 crore for the SGST.

By Chitranjan Kumar

Also Read: RBI announces more measures to deal with coronavirus fallout

Also Read: India's fiscal deficit may shoot to 6.2% in FY21, says Fitch Solutions