GST collections cross Rs 1 lakh crore mark

Revenue collections under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark in October, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday.

This was a marked improvement over the September GST collection (for August) which stood at Rs 94,442 crore.

Jaitley attributed the rise in the tax mop-up to lower tax rates and higher compliance.

"GST collections for October 2018 have crossed Rs. 1 lakh crore. The success of GST is lower rates, lesser evasion, higher compliance, only one tax and negligible interference by taxation authorities," he said in a tweet.

The only other time the GST collections had crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark was in April (for the month of March) when it was attributed to it being the last month of the financial year when collections are usually high "as people also try to pay arrears of some previous months".