Spurred by business resumption, GST revenue improves in June

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection, a weathervane of economic health, has posted a 46% jump in June at Rs 90,917 crore compared to the previous month, indicating a recovery in business activities post 68-day nationwide Covid-19 lockdown. However, the revenue is still 9% short of Rs 99,939 crore collected in June last year.

The GST collections for April was Rs 32,294 crore, a 72% year-on-year decline, the first full month under the 68-day nationwide coronavirus lockdown since March 25, a finance ministry statement said.

Although the GST revenue for May saw some improvements at Rs 62,009 crore, it was still 38% less than the revenue collected in the same month last year, the statement said.

The government had not released revenue collection figures for April and May this year. In March 2020, the revenue collection dipped by 8% at Rs 97,597 crore even as the slowdown had affected only the last week of the month.

Giving subdued collection in June 2020, the statement said the revenues from import of goods came down by 29% and the revenues from the domestic transactions (including import of services) came down by 3%.

“However, since the government has allowed a relaxed time schedule for filing of GST returns, returns of the month of April, March, as well as some returns of February, got filed during June 2020 and some returns of May 2020, which would have otherwise got filed in June, will get filed during first few days of July,” it said.

The GST collections for the first quarter of the current financial year is 41% less than Rs 3,14,090 crore revenue collected during the same quarter previous year. “However, a large number of taxpayers still have time to file their return for May 2020,” it said.

“The gross GST revenue collected in the month of June 2020 is Rs 90,917 crore of which CGST [Central GST] is Rs 18,980 crore, SGST [State GST] is Rs 23,970 crore, IGST [Integrated GST] is Rs 40,302 crore (including Rs 15,709 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 7,665 crore (including Rs 607 crore collected on import of goods),” it said.

The government has settled Rs 13,325 crore to CGST and Rs 11,117 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement, it said. The total revenue earned by the Union government and the state governments after regular settlement in June 2020 was Rs 32,305 crore for CGST and Rs 35,087 crore for the SGST, it added.

MS Mani, partner at consultancy firm Deloitte India said, “While a decline in GST revenues was expected due to business activities coming to a near standstill, these revenue numbers indicate that a revival is underway and collections will improve in the coming months.”

“It is also very interesting to note that in June some of larger producing states have shown an increase in collections or stable revenues compared to last year while some of the consuming states have shown a decline,” he added.