GST revenue for May stood at nearly Rs 1.41 lakh crore, a 44 per cent increase over the same month last year, the finance ministry said on Wednesday. Bucking the month-on-month increasing trend of the last two months, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenues came in lower than the record high collection in April at Rs 1.68 lakh crore. In March GST revenues were at Rs 1.42 lakh crore, while in February it was Rs 1.33 lakh crore.
The GST Council has set up a Group of Ministers, chaired by Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, to suggest required changes in the law for setting up the GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT). The GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and comprising state ministers, had last week decided to constitute a Group of Ministers (GoM) to address various concerns raised by states in relation to constitution of the GSTAT. As per the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the GoM, the panel would recommend required amendments in the GST law to ensure that the legal provisions maintain the right federal balance and are in line with the overall objective of uniform taxation within the country.
To meet the yearly target, each of the next five months has to yield Rs 1.107 trillion GST collections.
India's gross tax collections soared to a record high of Rs 27.07 lakh crore in the fiscal year ended March 31, led by impressive growth in corporate tax and customs, taking the tax-to-GDP ratio to an over two-decade high of 11.7 per cent, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Friday.
Total number of GSTR-3B returns filed up to January 30, 2022 is 1.05 crore that includes 36 lakh quarterly returns, the finance ministry said. January is the fourth straight month when Goods and Services Tax collection has crossed Rs 1.30 lakh crore.
The broad trends of GST collections will make you wonder if indeed the biggest indirect tax reform in the country has led to a real improvement in revenues, notes A K Bhattacharya.
GST collections touched a record high of over Rs 1.15 lakh crore in December, reflecting festive demand and reflating economy. The gross GST revenue collected in the month of December 2020 is Rs 115,174 crore and is the highest since the introduction of Goods and Services Tax from July 1, 2017, the finance ministry said in a statement.
The Centre is staring at a combined shortfall of up to Rs 1 trillion in excise and Customs revenues in the current financial year (FY23) compared to the Budget estimates (BE), mainly because of duty cuts on edible oil and petroleum products. The government set a target of Rs 3.35 trillion for excise and Rs 2.13 trillion for Customs mop-up for FY23 while presenting the Budget in February. "As excise duty collection is mainly driven by diesel volumes, we might see a clear gap in the level budgeted for FY23, following the reduction in cesses on petrol and diesel in May. We are expecting somewhere between Rs 80,000 crore and Rs 1 trillion dip in excise and customs duty collections," a senior government official told Business Standard.
GST collections in March slipped below the psychological Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the first time in four months to Rs 97,597 crore as the Covid-19 lockdown that shut most businesses compounded tax collection woes in an already sluggish economy. Goods and Services Tax (GST) mop-up in March recorded a 8.4 per cent decline over March 2019 collection of Rs 1.06 lakh crore. The collections were lower on account of dip in revenues from domestic transactions as well as imports.
A total of 35 persons have been arrested by the CGST authorities.
According to official sources, the number reflects pick up in consumption and improvement in compliance as well.
Despite a steady collection rate, the government faces a steep Budget target of Rs 6.1 trillion for CGST for 2019-20.
A well-established tax system would have a predictable buoyancy - how fast the collections grow as a proportion to the growth of the economy. But that is not the case with GST. It is still undergoing substantial changes as the government responds to structural as well as administrative glitches.
GST collections crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the fifth month in a row in February, rising 7 per cent to over Rs 1.13 lakh crore, indicating economic recovery, the Finance Ministry said on Monday. The collection is, however, lower than the record Rs 119,875 crore collected in the previous month.
1.03 crore taxpayers have been registered under GST till February 25, of which 17.65 lakh are composition dealers who are required to file returns every quarter.
Rates may be raised from 5 per cent to 8 per cent and 12 per cent to 15 per cent. The Council can explore possibility of merger of slabs to bring down the number of slabs to three. The Central GST collection fell short of the Budget Estimate by nearly 40 per cent during the April-November period of 2019-20
The total revenue earned by central government and state governments after regular settlement in December was Rs 43,851 crore for CGST and Rs 46,252 crore for SGST.
After the massive tax evasion of GST by cryptocurrency service provider WazirX, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence has come down heavily on cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country, said sources. "Around half a dozen offices of cryptocurrency service providers have been searched and massive Goods and Service Tax (GST) evasion has been detected by DGGI," sources told ANI. Crypto wallet and exchange are platforms where merchants and consumers can transact with digital assets like bitcoin, ethereum, ripple, etc.
The GST collection in April touched the highest ever level of about Rs 1.68 lakh crore, up 20 per cent from the year-ago period, on improved compliance and recovery in business activity, the Finance Ministry said on Sunday. During the month, 1.06 crore GST returns from GSTR-3B were filed, of which 97 lakh pertained to March 2022. The gross GST revenue collected in April is Rs 1,67,540 crore, of which CGST is Rs 33,159 crore, SGST Rs 41,793 crore, IGST Rs 81,939 crore (including Rs 36,705 crore collected on import of goods) and cess Rs 10,649 crore (including Rs 857 crore collected on import of goods), the ministry said.
However, where the directors' remuneration is in the nature of professional fees and not salary, GST will be levied on a reverse charge basis.
'There are unscrupulous traders who create fake invoices by showing bogus e-way bills, movement of goods.' 'Since the entities registered across different states, and kept on changing their numbers, tracing them was difficult.'
Tax experts say one of the most dispute-prone proposals is making "fraudulent availing" of input tax credit (ITC), without an invoice or bill, a cognizable and non-bailable offence.
Agencies, whether public sector or private sector, may have to pay goods and services tax on the charges they collect on behalf of the government from clients. The authority for advance rulings (AAR), Telangana, has ruled that e-procurement transaction fee collected by an agency on behalf of the government is chargeable to GST, said Rajat Mohan, senior partner at AMRG & Associates. The AAR also ruled that neither services provided by the agency to the government, nor services provided on behalf of the government to the business entities are exempt from GST, he informed about the case.
GST collections for January touched an all-time high of about Rs 1.20 lakh crore, the finance ministry said on Sunday. The ministry said in line with the trend of recovery in the GST revenues over past five months, the revenues for the month of January 2021 are 8 per cent higher than that in the same month last year.
During the month, the GST revenue from domestic transactions witnessed a growth of 16 per cent as compared to the year-ago period.
The revenue collection in the same month a year ago stood at Rs 94,442 crore.
The finance ministry on Monday said the recent raid on perfume trader Peeyush Jain's house in Kanpur, from where more than Rs 177 cr unaccounted cash was unearthed, was the "biggest ever seizure of cash" by an enforcement agency. The December 26 raid, which resulted in Jain's arrest, included searches at Jain's residential/factory premises in Kannauj, where about Rs 17 crore in cash have been recovered, the ministry said in a release. Further searches are underway at Jain's residential/factory premises in Kannauj.
The searches since December 22, which resulted in Jain's arrest, also included searches at the trader's residential/factory premises in Kannauj, wherein about Rs 17 crore in cash, 23 kg of gold and 600 kg sandalwood oil having a market value of about Rs 6 crore have been recovered, the ministry said in a release.
Mop up grows 10% y-o-y at Rs 1.05 trillion, almost equal to levels in February before a nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic
The shortfall in the Centre's GST collections has raised concerns over it meeting the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of GDP, reports Ishan Bakshi.
This is the third consecutive month when GST mop-up remained below the Rs 1 lakh crore mark, despite the festival season.
The mop-up could have been much higher, but tax on imports fell 2 per cent y-o-y.
The investigation against HUL was initiated on the basis of an anonymous complaint. It alleged 'profiteering' of around Rs 535 crore between November 15, 2017, and February 28, 2018.
Experts said this will mean that companies, which have offices in multiple states, will have to raise Goods and Services Tax invoice for functions performed by employees in head office that has helped branches in other states.
Only 69 per cent of the assessees filed returns
K M Mani was appointed the chairman of the panel in March this year.
Is the curated and limited data put out by the central government sufficient enough to pass a judgement on the trend in GST collections, particularly that of the Centre?
The government should bring natural gas under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for a gas-based economy and raising the share of the environment-friendly fuel in India's energy basket, an industry body that represents the likes of Reliance Industries as well as state-owned firms, has said. Natural gas is currently outside the ambit of GST, and existing legacy taxes -- central excise duty, state VAT, central sales tax -- continue to be applicable on the fuel. In its pre-Budget memorandum to the finance ministry, Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI), which boasts of members from across the oil and gas spectrum, also demanded rationalisation of GST on transportation of natural gas through pipeline as well as on re-gasification of imported LNG to help bring down cost of the environment friendly fuel.
The states which achieved "extraordinary growth" in total taxes collected include Kerala (44 per cent), Jharkhand (20 per cent), Rajasthan (14 per cent), Uttarakhand (13 per cent) and Maharashtra (11 per cent), an official statement said.
Tax experts said historically in July and August indirect tax collections remain subdued and pick up with the onset of the festive season post Ganesh Chaturthi.