Ahead of Budget 2020, Govt reveals it netted Rs 1.1 lakh cr from GST in January

Goods and services tax (GST) collection has crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the third month in a row in January on the back of anti-evasion steps taken by tax officers. This is second time since introduction of GST in July 2017 that the monthly revenues have crossed Rs 1.1 lakh crore.

The GST collection is in line with the target set by Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey after a high-level meeting with senior tax officials earlier this month. During the month, GST revenue from domestic transactions has shown a growth of 12 per cent over the revenue during January 2019, according to an official statement.

Taking into account the integrated goods and services tax (IGST) collected from imports of goods, the total revenue during January 2020 has increased by 8 per cent in comparison to the revenue during January 2019, it said.

However, the IGST on import of goods has shown a negative growth of (-)3% as compared to January, 2019.

"The gross GST revenue collected January 2020 is Rs 1,10,828 crore, of which CGST is Rs 20,944 crore, SGST is Rs 28,224 crore, IGST is Rs 53,013 crore (including Rs 23,481 crore collected on imports) and Cess is Rs 8,637 crore (including Rs 824 crore collected on imports)," it said.

The GST collection stood at Rs 1.02 lakh crore in January 2019, as per the official statement.

The total number of GSTR 3B returns filed for the month of December up to January 31, 2020 was 83 lakh.

The government has settled Rs 24,730 crore to Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) and Rs 18,199 crore to State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) from IGST as regular settlement.

The total revenue earned by the centre and state governments after regular settlement in January 2020 is Rs 45,674 crore for CGST and Rs 46,433 crore for SGST.

This month, the government set an ambitious target of Rs 1.1 lakh crore monthly GST revenue for the remaining part of the current fiscal and asked taxmen to step up efforts to achieve the goal.

To augment revenue collection, the Revenue Secretary revised GST collection target to Rs 1.25 lakh crore for the last month of this financial year with specific focus on fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) claims as found in data analytics review.

It was emphasised that GST authorities would look into the mismatch of supply and purchase invoices, data analytics of mismatch in GSTR-1, GSTR-2A and GSTR-3B, failure of filing returns, over invoicing, recuperation of fake or excess refunds availed beyond the permissible limits.

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Around 40,000 companies have been red-flagged for excess or fraudulent ITC availment and other tax related wrongful issues through data analytics, out of 1.2 crore GST registrants and focus would be on these identified taxpayers, sources said.