GST Collections Cross Rs 1-Lakh-Crore Mark For The First Time Since June

The government's goods and services tax collection for October crossed the Rs 1 lakh-crore mark, rising on the back of increased consumption during the festive season.

The GST collections for October, collected in November, stood at Rs 1.03 lakh crore, compared with Rs 95,380 crore collected for September and Rs 91,916 crore for August. That's a year-on-year growth of 6 percent and 5.1 percent above the monthly average of Rs 98,114 crore for FY19.

The finance ministry, in a statement, said that GST collections have recovered and posted a positive year-on-year increase after two successive months of decline.

“Crossing Rs 1 trillion (Rs 1 lakh crore) in a festive month, after a few months of tepid collections, would act as sentiment booster and help in keeping the fiscal deficit under control assuming this trend continues in the coming months,” said MS Mani, a partner at Deloitte India.

Collections of the indirect tax on domestic transactions grew 12 percent—the highest this year—while imports contracted 13 percent.

Here's a break-up of tax collected under various heads:

• Central GST: 19,592 crore.
• State GST: Rs 27,144 crore.
• Integrated GST: Rs 49,028 crore.
• Compensation Cess: Rs 7,727 crore.

Integrated GST is settled between the states and centre, based on consumption in the respective state.

“The number of GST returns filed during the month significantly improved over the previous month,” the statement said. “The total number of GSTR-3B returns filed for the month of October, by Nov. 30, stood at 77.83 lakh compared with 73.83 lakh in October, and 75.94 lakh in August.”

The government has so far this fiscal collected Rs 8.05 lakh crore in GST collections. That compares with Rs 12.17 lakh crore budgeted for this year, according to BloombergQuint's calculations.