March GST collection touch new record high at Rs 1.23 lakh crore

New Delhi: GST collections in March touched a record high of over Rs 1.23 lakh crore, a 27 per cent growth over the year-ago period, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday.

“The gross GST revenue collected in the month of March 2021 is at a record of Rs  1,23,902 crore of which CGST is Rs  22,973 crore, SGST is Rs  29,329 crore, IGST is Rs  62,842 crore (including Rs  31,097 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess is Rs  8,757 crore (including Rs  935 crore collected on import of goods),” an official release said.

The government has settled Rs  21,879 crore to CGST and Rs  17,230 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, Centre has also settled Rs  28,000 crore as IGST ad-hoc settlement in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and States/UTs. The total revenue of Centre and the States after regular and ad-hoc settlements in the month of March’ 2021 is Rs  58,852 crore for CGST and Rs  60,559 crore for the SGST. Centre has also released a compensation of Rs  30,000 crore during the month of March 2021.

The GST revenues during March 2021 are the highest since introduction of GST. In line with the trend of recovery in the GST revenues over past five months, the revenues for the month of March 2021 are 27% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year. During the month, revenues from import of goods was 70% higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 17% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year. The GST revenue witnessed growth rate of (-) 41%, (-) 8%, 8% and 14% in the first, second, third and fourth quarters of this financial year, respectively, as compared to the same period last year, clearly indicating the trend in recovery of GST revenues as well as the economy as a whole.

GST revenues crossed above Rs  1 lakh crore mark at a stretch for 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 last few months.