GST revenue jumps 11% to ₹1.59 lakh cr in August

The Centre's Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue collections jumped 10.8% year-on-year in August 2023 to ₹1.59 lakh crore, the Ministry of Finance data released today shows. The total GST collection, however, is down as compared to July 2023.

In the month of July 2023, the GST revenue jumped 11% year-on-year to touch ₹1,65,105 crore, marking the crossing of ₹1.6 lakh crore milestone for the fifth time since the GST rollout. 

Of the total GST revenue worth ₹1,59,069 crore collected in August 2023, CGST stands at ₹28,328 crore, SGST at ₹35,794 crore, IGST at ₹83,251 crore, including ₹43,550 crore collected on import of goods, and cess is ₹11,695 crore, including ₹1,016 crore collected on import of goods.

As per the finance ministry, the government has settled ₹37,581 crore to CGST and ₹31,408 crore to SGST from IGST. With this, the total revenue of the Centre and the states in August 2023 after regular settlement stands at ₹65,909 crore for CGST and ₹67,202 crore for SGST.

The FinMin says the GST revenue for August 2023 is 11% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year. "During the month, revenue from import of goods was 3% higher and the revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) are 14% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year," the ministry adds.

The overall GST collection has increased since FY19 when it stood at ₹11.7 lakh cr. In FY20, the total GST collection surged to ₹12.2 lakh crore. However, the collection declined to ₹11.3 lakh crore in FY21, and subsequently rose to ₹14.8 lakh crore and ₹18.07 lakh crore in FY22 and FY23, respectively. The average monthly collection stood at ₹1.5 lakh crore in FY23.

As per the ministry, the monthly average gross GST collection for the FYs 2021-22 & 2022-23 has shown 30% and 22% year-on-year growth, respectively. The FinMin data shows the GST collection from the corporate sector in FY 2018-19 was ₹6,36,248.61 crores, which increased to ₹9,61,938.36 crore in FY 2022-23.

The government says the GST Council has undertaken several reforms to improve compliance and increase collection. Some initiatives are structural changes like calibration of GST rates for correcting inverted duty structure and pruning of exemptions; measures for improving tax compliance such as mandating e-way bill, ITC matching, mandating e-invoice, deployment of artificial intelligence and machine-based analytics, among others. 

Notably, the contentious issue of 28% GST on online gaming will be applicable from next month, despite opposition from the industry. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month said 28% GST on online gaming will be effective from October 1 as by that time all the states are expected to amend the state laws subsequent to the amendments to the Central GST Act, enabling the higher tax bracket.