Revenue collections under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) have risen marginally in December after falling for two straight months. The Finance Ministry on Thursday said the total revenue mop-up under GST for December 2017 (received up to January 24) was ?86,703 crore.

It stood at ?80,808 crore in November and ?83,000 crore in October. Before that it was significantly higher at ?92,150 crore in September.

The Ministry further said that one crore taxpayers have been registered under GST of which 17.11 lakh are composition dealers, who are required to file returns every quarter, the Ministry further said.

"For the quarter July to September 2017, a total of 8.10 lakh returns were filed by such dealers who paid ?335.86 crore as GST," it said.

Meanwhile for the quarter October to December 2017, 9.25 lakh returns were filed by the composition dealers who paid a total of ?421.35 crore as GST.

Additionally, 56.30 lakh GSTR-3B returns were filed for December 2017 till January 24, 2018.

Tax experts said that GST revenues seem to have stabilised to some extent and will rise further in coming months.

"Increase in revenue collection is on expected lines and means that gradually GST is stabilising and impact of transition issues is waning out. This, coupled with a few anti-evasion measures being taken, is likely to result in further increase of revenues in January to March quarter," said Pratik Jain, Leader (Indirect Tax), PwC.

MS Mani, Senior Director, Deloitte India, also welcomed the data and said, "A combination of reasonable rates and easier compliance processes during December would also have contributed to the improvement in collections. With several other measures such as the E-way Bill lined up, the collections would only increase in future."

A relief to States

The data could also come as a relief to States that have been concerned about possible revenue losses under GST as well as the Centre that is concerned about meeting the fiscal deficit target of 3.2 per cent of the GDP.

West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra had in December said that States had a revenue shortfall of ?39,111 crore from GST in the first four months of its rollout.

 26 Jan 2018, 10:51 AM