GST collection drops 9% to Rs 90,917 cr in June

The COVID-19 induced shrinking of economic activity for past few months has continued to have its impact on government's tax collections with revenue under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) falling far below the psychological level of Rs 1 lakh crore to Rs 90,917 crore in June.

The June collections, which is 91 per cent of last years numbers, is however, a recovery from previous two months when COVID-19 induced lockdowns and severe disruptions in economic activities resulting in GST collections nosediving to all time low levels.

The GST collections for the month of April was Rs 32,294 crore which was mere 28 per cent of the revenue collected during the same month last year and the GST collections for the month of May was Rs 62,009 crore which was 62 per cent of the revenue collected during the same month last year.

Accordingly, the GST collections for the first quarter of the year (FY21) is at a low of 59 per cent of the revenue collected during the same quarter last year. But, with a large number of taxpayers still have time to file their return for the month of May, 2020, government hopes that final numbers would go up.

"While a decline in GST revenues was expected due to business activities coming to a near standstill, these revenue numbers indicate that a revival is underway and collections will improve in the coming months. The fact that the collections in Q1 are 59 per cent of that in the similar period last year, while being indicative of the decline in economic activities during Q1, also indicates that a gradual revival is underway in some sectors," M.S. Mani, Partner, Deloitte India said.

Out of the total GST collection of Rs 90,917 crore for June, CGST was Rs 18,980 crore, SGST was Rs 23,970 crore, an official statement said.

IGST collection stood at 40,302 crore (including Rs 15,709 crore collected on imports) and Cess collected was Rs 7,665 crore (including Rs 607 crore collected on imports). The government has settled Rs 13,325 crore to CGST and Rs 11,117 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement.

The total revenue earned by Central Government and the State Governments after regular settlement in the month of June, 2020 is Rs 32,305 crore for CGST and Rs 35,087 crore for the SGST.

During June, the revenues from import of goods were 71 per cent and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) were 97 per cent of the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.

However, since the government has allowed a relaxed time schedule for filing of GST returns, Returns of the month of April, March as well as some returns of February got filed during June 2020 and some returns of May 2020, which would have otherwise got filed in June, will get filed during first few days of July, the government statement said.

The revenues during the financial year has been impacted due to COVID-19, firstly due to the economic impact of the pandemic and secondly due to the relaxations given by the Government in filing of returns and payment of taxes due to the pandemic. However, figures of past three months show recovery in GST revenues, the statement added.

Among the states, June collections have daleelen most in Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. But in some of the other larger states either there is growth in numbers or fall is limited.

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"It is very interesting to note that in June some of larger producing states have shown an increase in collections or stable revenues compared to last year while some of the consuming states have shown a decline," Manu said.