GST revenue scales to all-time high of ₹1.68 lakh cr in April

GST revenue in the month of April has logged an all time high of ₹1,67,540 crore, up 20% from the same month in the previous year. The April revenue is up ₹25,000 crore, or 18%, from previous record collection of ₹1,42,095 in March this year.

"The gross GST revenue collected in the month of April, 2022 is ₹1,67,540 crore of which CGST is ₹33,159 crore, SGST is ₹41,793 crore, IGST is ₹81,939 crore (including ₹36,705 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is ₹10,649 crore (including ₹857 crore collected on import of goods)," the finance ministry said in a release.

"For the first time gross GST collection has crossed ₹1.5 lakh crore mark. Total number of e-way bills generated in the month of March 2022 was 7.7 crore, which is 13% higher than 6.8 crore e-way bills generated in the month of February 2022, which reflects recovery of business activity at faster pace," it added.

MS Mani, Partner, Deloitte India said, "The steep growth in the GST collections is based on all major states reporting increases ranging from 9% to 25%, GST return filing standing at 1.06 Crore returns, e-way bill generation at 7.7 crore, accompanied by a deep focus on data analytics to curb evasion."

"While the GST collections in respect of March have always been high, the record collections of ₹1.68 lakh crore reported are on account of multiple favorable factors including the recent changes on permitting input tax credits only upon timely compliance by the vendors," Mani said.

"The impact of the continuing focus on ensuring timely compliance by all GST registrants by restricting the input tax credits of the buyers together with enhanced analytics to detect evasion has also contributied significantly to the all time high collections reported," Mani added.

It may be noted that the month of April 2022 saw the highest ever tax collection in a single day on 20th April 2022 and highest collection during an hour, during 4 PM to 5PM on that day, according to the ministry.

On 20th April 2022, ₹57,847 crore was paid through 9.58 lakh transactions and during 4-5 PM, almost ₹8,000 crore was paid through 88,000 transactions. The highest single day payment last year (on the same date) was ₹48,000 crore through 7.22 lakh transactions and highest one hour collection (2-3PM on the same date last year) was ₹6,400 crore through 65,000 transactions.

Data shows increased level of compliance leading to buoyancy in collection. During April 2022, 1.06 crore GST returns in GSTR-3B were filed, of which 97 lakh pertained to the month of March 2022, as compared to total 92 lakh returns filed during April 2021, as per the ministry release.

"Similarly, during April 2022, 1.05 crore statements of invoices issued in GSTR-1 were filed. Till end of the month, the filing percentage for GSTR-3B in April 2022 was 84.7% as compared to 78.3% in April 2021 and the filing percentage for GSTR-1 in April 2022 was 83.11% as compared to 73.9% in April 2021," it added.

"This shows clear improvement in the compliance behaviour, which has been a result of various measures taken by the tax administration to nudge taxpayers to file returns timely, to making compliance easier and smoother and strict enforcement action taken against errant taxpayers identified based on data analytics and artificial intelligence," it added.