GST Collections in October Decline to Rs 83,346 crore
A sum of Rs 83,346 crores
has been collected as Total Revenue Collection under GST for the month of October,
received in November till 27th November 2017. 95.9 lakh taxpayers have
been registered under GST so far, of which 15.1 lakh are composition dealers who
are required to file returns every quarter. 50.1 lakh returns have been filed for
the month of October till 26th November 2017.
Revenue of States: The States have collected
a total of Rs. 87,238 crores by way of SGST in the months
of August, September, October and November 2017 (till 27th November).
Further on all inter-state trade, a net amount is transferred from IGST account
to the SGST account whenever IGST collected is used for payment of SGST. By way
of settlement an amount of Rs. 31,821 crores has been
released to the States for the months of August, September and October 2017. Rs13,882
crores is being released by way of settlement to all the States for the month of
November 2017. Further, as per Goods and Services (Compensation to States) Act 2017,
the States revenues are fully protected against any shortfall in GST collections.
A compensation amount of Rs. 10,806 crores has been released
to all the States for the months of July and August 2017 and a compensation of Rs.13,695
crores for the months of September and October 2017 is being released. The States
revenues have thus been fully protected taking base year revenue as 2015-16 and
providing for a projected revenue growth rate of 14%.
Centre’s Revenue: The total CGST income in
the months of August, September, October and November (till 27th November)
has been Rs.58,556 crores. In addition to this, an amount of Rs.16,233 crores has
been transferred from IGST account to CGST account by way of settlement of funds
on account of inter-state supply of goods and services in the month of August, September
and October, 2017. Further, Rs. 10,145 crores is being
transferred to CGST account from IGST account for the month of November 2017 by
way of settlement. The major reason for the gap in income of CGST and SGST has been
that more CGST liability has been discharged using transition credit rather than
by way of cash. Thus, taxpayers are using the balance credit available with them
in the previous tax regime, which is the reason why there is an additional revenue
gap in the Centre’s revenue.
The reason for downward trend of tax revenue under
GST could be attributed to the following factors :
·
Because of the first time requirement of paying IGST on transfer of goods
from one state to another state even within the same company, there was an additional
cash flow of IGST in the first 3 months. 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;
·
Since the overall incidence of taxes on most of the commodities have
come down under GST, it would naturally have some implication on the revenues of
the Government.
·
The tax administration of GST is now based on self-declared Tax Return,
in which the assesse decides on his own how much tax liability he has and claims
input tax credit as per his own calculations. Since implementation of some of the
main features of GST such as, matching of returns, e-way bill as well as reverse
charge mechanism have been postponed the tax compliance may not be up to the mark.
Returns filed: The total number of GSTR
3B returns filed for the return period July, August, September and October 2017
till 26thNovember is 58.7 lakh, 58.9 lakh, 57.3 lakh and 50.1 lakh respectively.