GST collection hits a record high of Rs 1.68 lakh cr

The Ministry of Finance on Sunday said that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections have touched an all-time high of over Rs 1.68 lakh crore in April as the country witnessed an improvement in economic activities.

The April collection is Rs 25,000 crore higher than that in March, having the second-highest collection of Rs 1.42 lakh crore. The gross GST revenue collected in the month of April is Rs 167,540 crore of which Central-GST is Rs 33,159 crore, State-GST is Rs 41,793 crore, Integrated-GST is Rs 81,939 crore (including Rs 36,705 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 10,649 crore (including Rs 857 crore collected on import of goods), the Ministry said.

Further, as per a press release of the Ministry, the government has settled Rs 33,423 crore to CGST and Rs 26,962 crore to SGST from IGST.

“The total revenue of Centre and the States in the month of April 2022 after the regular settlement is Rs 66,582 crore for CGST and Rs 68,755 crore for the SGST,” the release read.

The Ministry said that revenues for the month of April are 20% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year.

“During the month, revenues from import of goods were 30% higher and the revenues from the domestic transaction (including import of services) are 17% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year,” they stated.

For the first time, the Ministry said, the gross GST collection has crossed the Rs 1.5 lakh crore mark.

“Total number of e-way bills generated in the month of March 2022 was 7.7 crore, which is 13% higher than 6.8 crore e-way bills generated in the month of February 2022, which reflects the recovery of business activity at a faster pace,” the release stated.

As per the Ministry, this shows clear improvement in the compliance behaviour, which has been a result of various measures taken by the tax administration to nudge taxpayers to file returns timely, to making compliance easier and smoother and strict enforcement action taken against errant taxpayers identified based on data analytics and artificial intelligence.