The Goods and services tax (GST) revenue collections in March 2021 set the highest record of collecting nearly ₹1.24 trillion since its introduction in July 2017, the government said on Thursday. Also, the collections marked 27 per cent higher when compared with the year-ago period.
In a statement, The Ministry of Finance said, “GST revenues during March 2021 are the highest since the introduction of GST. In line with the trend of recovery in the GST revenues over the past five months, the revenues for March 2021 are 27 per cent higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year.”
✅GST Revenue collection for March’ 21 sets new record
✅The gross GST revenue collected in the month of March 2021 is at a record of ₹ 1,23,902 crore
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— Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) April 1, 2021
The Ministry informed that the GST revenues surpassed the ₹1 lakh crore mark over the last six months, and a steep increasing trend over this period are clear indicators of rapid economic recovery post-pandemic.
“Closer monitoring against fake-billing, deep data analytics using data from multiple sources including GST, Income-tax and Customs IT systems and effective tax administration have also contributed to the steady increase in tax revenue over the last few months,” it said.
If compared, the collection of GST in March was more than Rs 10,000 crore higher than the February 2021 collection of ₹1.13 lakh crore. This sets an all-time high record since the introduction of this tax system. Of the ₹1.23 lakh crore revenue, CGST (Central Goods and Services Tax) contributed ₹22,973 crore while SGST (State Goods and Service Tax) was at ₹29,329 crore.
IGST (Integrated Goods and Services Tax) amounted to ₹62,842 crore (Comprising ₹31,097 crore collected on import of goods) and cess was ₹8,757 crore (including ₹935 crore collected on import of goods).
“The government has settled ₹21,879 crore to CGST and ₹17,230 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement,” the ministry said. Further, it said, “ In addition, Centre has also settled ₹ 28,000 crore as IGST ad-hoc settlement in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and States/UTs. The total revenue of the Centre and the States after regular and ad-hoc settlements in the month of March 2021 is ₹58,852 crore for CGST and ₹60,559 crore for the SGST. The Centre has also released a compensation of ₹30,000 crore during the month of March 2021.”
March observed 70% higher revenues from import of goods and 17% higher revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) than the revenues from these sources during February.
The GST revenue witnessed a growth rate of first, second, third, fourth quarter stood at (-) 41%, (-) 8%, 8% and 14% comparing to the same period last financial year. It indicates the trend in the recovery of GST revenues as well as the economy as a whole.