New DelhiThe GST collection in April crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark for the first time, indicating stabilisation of the new indirect tax regime that was rolled out on July 1 last year.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressed hope that the positive trend in collection of Goods and Services Tax (GST) would continue.
In March the figure was Rs 89,264 crore. The GST mop up in the entire 2017-18 fiscal stood at Rs 7.41 lakh crore.
“The total gross GST revenue collected in April 2018 is Rs 1,03,458 crore of which CGST is Rs 18,652 crore, SGST is Rs 25,704 crore, IGST is Rs 50,548 crore (including Rs 21,246 crore collected on imports) and Cess is Rs 8,554 crore – including Rs 702 crore collected on imports, Finance Ministry said in a release.
The buoyancy in the tax revenue of GST reflects the upswing in the economy and better compliance, it added.
Jaitley said in a tweet that with the improved economic climate, introduction of e-way bill and improved GST compliance, the indirect collections would continue to show a positive trend.
“GST collections in April exceeding Rs 1 lakh crore is a landmark achievement and a confirmation of increased economic activity as brought out by other reports,” the finance minister said.
He stressed that increased tax collections will help the nation to expand its economic horizons and take it to loftier heights.
The ministry further said that it is usually noticed that in the last month of a financial year, people also try to pay arrears of some of the previous months and, therefore, April 2018 revenue cannot be taken as trend for the future.
The total revenue earned by the central and state governments, after settlement in April, is Rs 32,493 crore for Central GST and Rs 40,257 crore for State GST, it said.
Vishal Raheja of Taxmann said the impact of e-way bill can be seen from the figures of GST revenue collection.
“It was highly expected that e-way bill being the strong pillar of GST would raise the revenue after implementation as the chances of evasion would be reduced to significant extent after its rollout,” he said.
Sharing his views on the indirect tax collections, Sandeep Chilana, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas said that with anti evasion mechanism such as e-way bills becoming mandatory from April 1 2018, “it is expected that the 1 lakh crore benchmark would be sustainable in the coming months”.
As far as total number of GSTR 3B returns for March up to April 30 was concerned, nearly 69.5 per cent filed returns.
As many as 60.47 lakh as against 87.12 lakh, who are eligible to file returns for March, did the needful, it said.
April was also the month for filing of quarterly returns for composition dealers, it said.
Out of 19.31 lakh composition dealers, 11.47 lakh have filed their quarterly return (GSTR 4) and have paid total tax of Rs 579 crore, which is included in Rs 1.03 lakh crore of total GST collection, the ministry added.
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