GST Is No Longer Work In Progress
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
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By Linus Garg
First publised on 2022-04-01 13:16:59
About the Author
Linus tackles things head-on. He takes sides in his analysis and it fits excellently with our editorial policy. No 'maybe's' and 'allegedly' for him, only things in black and white.
View all posts by this Author
There is a contradiction in the Indian economy as demand for goods and services is still suppressed but the same is not reflected in GST collections. In March, all previous records were broken with a collection of Rs 142095cr. The previous high was Rs 140986cr in January this year. For the last six months, GST collections have been Rs 1.30 lakh crore or more. In FY 21-22, an average of Rs 1.10 lakh crore was collected in Q1, Rs 1.15 lakh crore in Q2, Rs 1.30 lakh crore in Q3 and Rs. 1.38 lakh crore in Q4. The highest GST was collected in Maharashtra. Among bigger states, West Bengal and Telangana were laggards, showing just 2% growth year-on-year in March 2022.
Last month, the breakup of collection was: CGST Rs 25830cr, SGST Rs 32378cr and IGST Rs 74470cr including Rs 39131 on imports. Rs 9417cr were collected as cess out of which Rs 981cr was on imports. The Centre also settled Rs 29,816 crore to CGST and Rs 25,032 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. It also settled Rs 20000cr on ad-hoc basis in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and states. A sum of Rs 18252cr was released to states/UTs as GST compensation.
A finance ministry press release said that efforts by the GST Council to rationalize the rate structure to correct inverted duty structure, along with economic recovery, anti-evasion activities, especially action against fake billers have been contributing to the enhanced GST collections. There is no doubt that the GST Council has plugged many loopholes and it has resulted in better compliance and better collections. The states have also become quieter since revenues are now much more and they are being adequately compensated. The GST Council has done well to take early and firm decisions to remove the work-in-progress tag from the one nation, one tax initiative and make it a service that is delivering excellent results, both in ease of doing business and in tax collections.
