GST collection soars to all-time high of Rs 1.42 lakh crore in March

New Delhi: The gross revenue collection from Goods and Services Tax (GST) soared to an all-time high of Rs 1,42,095 crore in March 2022 surpassing the earlier record of Rs 1,40,986 crore reached in January 2022, the Union Finance Ministry said on Friday.

The gross GST revenue collected in the month of March 2022 is Rs 1,42,095 crore of which Central GST is Rs 25,830 crore, State GST is Rs 32,378 crore, Integrated GST is Rs 74,470 crore (including Rs 39,131 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 9,417 crore (including Rs 981 crore collected on import of goods), the Finance Ministry said.

The gross GST collection in March 2022 is an all-time high breaching an earlier record of Rs 1,40,986 crore collected in the Month of January 2022. The government has settled Rs 29,816 crore to CGST and Rs 25,032 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement.

In addition, the Centre also settled Rs 20,000 crore of IGST on an ad-hoc basis in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and States/UTs in March.

The total revenue of Centre and the States in the month of March 2022 after regular and ad-hoc settlements is Rs 65646 crore for CGST and Rs 67410 crore for the SGST.

The Centre also released GST compensation of Rs 18,252 crore to States/UTs during the month. The revenues for the month of March 2022 are 15 per cent higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year and 46 per cent higher than the GST revenues in March 2020.

During the month, revenues from import of goods were 25 per cent higher and the revenues from the domestic transactions (including import of services) are 11 per cent higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.

The total number of e-way bills generated in the month of February 2022 is 6.91 crore as compared to e-way bills generated in the month of January 2022 (6.88 crore) despite being a shorter month, which indicates the recovery of business activity at a faster pace.

The average monthly gross GST collection for the last quarter of the FY 2021-22 has been Rs 1.38 lakh crore against the average monthly collection of Rs 1.10 lakh crore, Rs 1.15 lakh crore and Rs 1.30 lakh crore in the first, second and third quarters respectively.

Coupled with economic recovery, anti-evasion activities, especially action against fake billers have been contributing to the enhanced GST.

The improvement in revenue has also been due to various rate rationalization measures undertaken by the Council to correct the inverted duty structure.