The government has mopped up Rs 83,346 crore from GST for the month of October, a fall of nearly Rs 7,000 crore from the previous month. A total 50.1 lakh returns have been filed for the month of October till 26th November 2017. About 95.9 lakh taxpayers have been registered under GST so far, of which 15.1 lakh are composition dealers who are required to file returns every quarter.
The states have collected a total of Rs 87,238 crores by way of state GST (SGST) in the months of August, September, October and November. Under the GST Act, state revenues are fully protected against any shortfall in the GST collections. States have been compensated with Rs 10,806 crore for the months of July and August and a compensation of Rs 13,695 crore for the months of September and October.
The total central GST (CGST) income in the months of August, September, October and November (till 27th November) have been Rs 58,556 crore. In addition to this, an amount of Rs 16,233 crores has been transferred from integrated GST (IGST) account to CGST account by way of settlement of funds on account of inter-state supply of goods and services.
The lower collections are mainly because of the release of state and central GST out of IGST, paid in the first three months. The overall incidence of taxes on most of the commodities has also come down leading to implication on the revenues of the government.
“The tax administration of GST is now based on self-declared Tax Return, in which the assesse decides on his own, how much tax liability he has and claims input tax credit as per his own calculations. Since implementation of some of the main features of GST such as, matching of returns, e-way bill as well as reverse charge mechanism have been postponed, the tax compliance may not be up to the mark," said a statement from finance ministry.
“While the states are expected to benefit from a committed 14 per cent year-on-year growth in state revenue following the implementation of the GST, we believe that central government’s finances are likely to have an adverse impact to the tune of $110 billion,” research agency India Ratings said in a report.
