Budget 2019: Government keeps a moderate target for GST collections for FY20

The government's Goods and Services Tax revenue collections target will likely be achieved next year, after more than two years of rough and tumble and multiple pain points still getting ironed out.

For 2019-20, the government is looking to collect Rs 7.61 lakh crore from GST, higher by 18 percent from the revised estimates of this year, but nearly flat compared to Rs 7.43 lakh crore it had set out to achieve when the Budget was presented a year ago, Budget documents show.

GST collections largely remained below the monthly average of Rs 1 lakh crore, pummeled by several rate changes and the procedural irritants that the GST Council has been addressing progressively over the last one-and-a-half year.

According to Budget documents' revised estimate, the government aims to collect Rs 11.47 lakh crore from GST in 2018-19 as compared with the Budget estimate of over Rs 13 lakh crore. The number has been calculated with the assumption that state's share in form of State GST (GST) is equal to the Centre's share, known as Centre GST (CGST).

Till now (April-January), the government has collected Rs 9.71 lakh crore revenue from GST. Achieving the revenue collection target is crucial as it has a direct bearing on the fiscal deficit, which is a gap between government's revenue and expenditure.

GST collections for January crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark and is expected to be Rs 1,03,000 crore, interim Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said on February 1.

Accrual of the full benefit of GST reforms and revenues is expected to take some more time and therefore the stabilisation phase is expected to continue in 2019-20, according to the government's medium term fiscal policy cum fiscal policy cum fiscal policy statement.