May GST collection jumps 44% to ₹1,40,885 crore

The collection of Goods and Services Tax (GST) stood at ₹1,40,885 crore in the month of May, up 44% as compared to ₹97,821 crore in the same month last year. However, the revenues for May 2022 are 16% lower than the GST revenues in the previous month. The revenue collection hit an all-time high of ₹1.68 lakh crore in April 2022, breaching its next highest collection of ₹1,42,095 crore registered in March 2022.

During the month under review, Central GST stood at ₹25,036 crore, state GST was ₹32,001 crore, integrated GST at ₹73,345 crore (including ₹37469 crore collected on import of goods) and cess at ₹10,502 crore (including ₹931 crore collected on import of goods), as per data released by the Ministry of Finance on Wednesday.

As per the release, the government has settled ₹27,924 crore to CGST and ₹23,123 crore to SGST from IGST. The total revenue of the Centre and the States in the month of May 2022 after the regular settlement was ₹52,960 crore for CGST and ₹55,124 crore for the SGST. In addition, the Centre has also released GST compensation of ₹86912 crores to States and UTs on May 31, 2022.

“The revenues for the month of May 2022 are 44% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year of ₹97,821 crore. During the month, revenues from import of goods was 43% higher and the revenues from the domestic transaction (including import of services) are 44% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year,” the FinMin says.

The finance ministry says this is only the fourth time the monthly GST collection crossed ₹1.40 lakh crore mark since inception of GST and third month at a stretch since March 2022. “The collection in the month of May, which pertains to the returns for April, the first month of the financial year, has always been lesser than that in April, which pertains to the returns for March, the closing of the financial year.”

“However, it is encouraging to see that even in the month of May 2022, the gross GST revenues have crossed the ₹1.40 lakh crore mark. Total number of e-way bills generated in the month of April 2022 was 7.4 crore, which is 4% lesser than 7.7 crore e-way bills generated in the month of March 2022,” says the release.

Commenting on GST data, MS Mani, Partner, Deloitte India says the stability in revenue collections is a good indicator of the growth of the economy. “The stability demonstrated by GST collections exceeding ₹1.4 lakh crore over the past three months is a good indicator of the growth of the economy and ties in with the other macro economic indicators including the GDP numbers. Significant efforts in audits and analytics have also led to a drive against tax evaders, inculcating a tax compliance culture. The reduction in collections compared with the previous months was expected as the collections for March , being the last month of the fiscal year, have always been more than other months of the year,” says Mani.