GST added Rs 90,000 crore a month to Indian Govt in FY18

Goods and services tax (GST) collections averaged just under Rs 90,000 crore a month in the first eight months after the rollout of the levy, adding up to Rs 7.19 lakh crore in the year ended March amid a steady improvement in compliance, the government said.

“The average monthly collection under GST for FY 2017-18 was around Rs 90,000 crore, implying a deficit of approximately 24% in reference to the estimations for 2018-19,” said Abhishek Jain, tax partner, EY India. “While the deficit is apparently perturbing, it is expected to be reduced with e-way bills in place and possible introduction of other anti-evasion measures such as TDS/TCS (tax deducted at source/tax collected at source), credit matching, etc.” Domestic collections are for the July 2017-February 2018 period while those on imports are for nine months including March 2018.

“While the tax on domestic supplies in a month is collected through the process of returns and gets collected in the next month, IGST (integrated GST) and cess on imports gets collected in the same month,” the finance ministry said in a statement.

GST on domestic supplies has been collected for eight months from August 2017 to March 2018, while IGST and the cess on imports have been collected for nine months, from July 2017 to March 2018

Analysts said collections were below estimates but the phased introduction of a key component will boost revenue from the indirect tax.