GST collections down to Rs. 80,808 cr in December

The Dollar Business Bureau

The revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has dropped to Rs.80,808 crore for the month of December, a decline for the second straight month. This is the lowest collections since the new indirect tax regime rolled out on July 1.

“The total collection under GST for the month of December 2017 has been Rs.80,808 crores till December 25, 2017,” the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Tuesday.

For the month of August, the collection was more than Rs.91,000 crore. In September, the figure was over Rs.92,150 crore and in October, it was over Rs.83,000 crore.

The drop in this month’s collections is due to the impact of rate cut under the GST on more than 200 items from November 15. The collections are lower by about 14% than compared to Rs.94,063 crore recorded in July (as on August 31) and around 11% lower than the projected Rs.91,000 crore target.

Out of the overall GST collections of Rs. 80,808 crores (upto December 25), Rs.13,089 crores have been collected as Central GST, Rs.18,650 crores has been collected as State GST, Rs.41,270 crores has been collected as Integrated GST. Out of that Rs.7,798 crores has been collected as compensation cess.

“Further, Rs.10,348 crores is being transferred from IGST to CGST account and Rs.14,488 crores is being transferred from IGST to SGST account by way of settlement of funds on account of cross utilisation of IGST credit for payment of CGST and SGST respectively or due to inter State B2C transactions,” the statement said.

Therefore, an overall amount of Rs.24,836 crore is being transferred from IGST to CGST/SGST account by way of settlement, it added.

For the month of December, the total collection of SGST and CGST is Rs. 33,138 crore and Rs.23,437 crore respectively, that include transfers by way of settlement.

Till December 25, around 99.01 lakh taxpayers have been registered under the GST, including 16.6 lakh as composition dealers which have to file quarterly returns.