Centre mops up Rs 7.41 lakh crore GST, Rs 20,000 crore cess
The revenue collection picked up substantially since the launch of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as India collected Rs 7.41 lakh crore from August 2017 to March 2018.
Published: 28th April 2018 01:39 AM | Last Updated: 28th April 2018 05:09 AM | A+A A-
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at the 26th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax GST Council in New Delhi on Saturday. (PTI)
NEW DELHI: The revenue collection picked up substantially since the launch of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as India collected Rs 7.41 lakh crore from August 2017 to March 2018.
For the period ending March 31, 2018, the GST collection has been pegged at Rs 7.41 trillion, a Finance Ministry statement said.
Because of the mid-year rollout, the accounting was done for only nine months. “During 2017-18, total revenue collected under GST in the period between August 2017 and March 2018 has been Rs 7.19 lakh crore.
This includes Rs 1.19 lakh crore of CGST, Rs 1.72 lakh crore of SGST, Rs 3.66 lakh crore of IGST (including Rs 1.73 lakh crore on imports) and Rs 62,021 crore of cess (including Rs 5702 crore on imports),” the statement said. For March alone, Rs 24,000 crore addition was shown against an average monthly collection of Rs 89,000 crore in the previous eight months. “While the tax on domestic supplies for a month is collected through the process of returns and gets collected the next month, IGST and cess on imports is collected the same month.
Therefore, during the current year, GST on domestic supplies has been collected only in eight months from August 2017 to March 2018, IGST and cess on imports has been collected for nine months from July 2017 to March 2018. Including the collection of July 2017, the total GST collection during the financial year 2017-18 stands provisionally at Rs 7.41 lakh crore,” the statement said. At present, GST collections are accounted for only after the returns are filed by the third week of the following month.
From the current fiscal year, the government is shifting to cash-based accounting, where revenues accrued at the completion of a month would be taken on record. Accordingly, collection for April is likely to be released on May 1.
“Given the fact that it was the launch year, the focus was on stabilisation of the system. However, from the current fiscal, the focus will be on compliance and also on smoothening the rough ends. We expect the collection in this fiscal year to go up substantially,” said a senior official in the ministry. The government has also collected Rs 20,000 crore in its cess pool, which will be utilised to compensate the states for revenue loss, an official said.
