Govt to study quarterly GST revenue averages for trend analysis

While the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections in April--- the first month of the current fiscal -- came in at Rs 1.03 lakh crore, the average monthly collection last fiscal from August-March was Rs 89,885 crore.

"The department will look at quarterly revenue trends to better gauge the revenue trend. The aim is to increase the average revenue collection from what we achieved last fiscal," a senior official said.

From 2018-19 fiscal, the government has shifted to a cash basis of accounting where revenues accrued at the completion of a month would be taken on record immediately at the end of the month.

Accordingly the Rs 1.03 lakh crore GST collected in April reflects the Central GST and State GST which accrued in March.

While releasing the April tax collection data on Tuesday, the Finance Ministry had said that in March which is the last month of a financial year, taxpayers pay arrears of some of the previous months also and, therefore, this month's revenue cannot be taken as trend for the future.

The official, however, said that the GST collections in May too are expected to be higher as e-way bill was implemented across the country from April 1.

Touted as anti-evasion measure, the e-way bill is required to be generated for moving goods worth over Rs 50,000 from one state to another. This provision has been rolled out in 17 states for movement of goods within the states and more states would follow the suit. The provisions is expected to boost tax collections by clamping down on trade that currently happens on cash basis.

Other such measures like reverse charge, TDS and TCS provisions and invoice matching, which are currently kept in abeyance, will help raise GST collections once they are implemented.

The GST Council will meet on May 4 to discuss a simplified one-page return filing system wherein input credits can be availed by the taxpayer once the invoice uploaded on the portal by sellers are accepted by the respective buyers.