The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections for the month of October crossed Rs 1 lakh crore mark on the back of festive sales and anti-evasion measures. “The total gross GST revenue collected in the month of October is Rs 1,00710 crore,”the finance ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

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“The success of GST is lower rates, lesser evasion, higher compliance, only one tax and negligible interference by taxation authorities,” Finance minister Arun Jaitley tweeted. A total of 67.45 lakh businesses have filed returns, GSTR 3B, for the month of September till October 31, the finance ministry said in a statement.

The finance ministry had set a monthly target of over Rs 1 lakh crore in GST collections for this fiscal. The pick-up in revenue collections is good news for the government which is struggling to meet its fiscal deficit target of 3.3% of the GDP.

Of the total gross GST revenue of 1.007 lakh crore collected in October, Central GST is Rs 16,464 crore, State GST is Rs 22,826 crore, Integrated GST is Rs 26,908 crore and cess is Rs 8,000 crore.

“While the uptick in the October 2018 GST collections compared to the trend since May 2018, is encouraging, the inflow remained lower than the April 2018 levels. Whether GST collections sustain above Rs 1 lakh crore per month during the festive months, as well as in the remainder of H2 FY2019, remains to be seen,” said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at Icra.

GST collections stood at Rs 94,016 crore in May, Rs 95,610 crore in June, Rs 96,483 crore in July, Rs 93,960 crore in August and Rs 94,442 crore in September. The GST mop-up had crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark for the first time in April and since then it has remained above the Rs 90,000 crore level.

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According to MS Mani, Partner, Deloitte, “It appears that GST collections have turned the tide and the increased collections would be on account of the stabilisation of GST processes and the anti-evasion measures taken. The fact that September heralds the festive season has also helped in improving collections.”

Source: DNA Money Correspondent