New Delhi: The GST collection has been showing an upward trend on an annual basis since its rollout on July 1, 2017, and the average gross monthly mop-up in the current fiscal so far is Rs 1.66 lakh crore, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday.
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, she said the GST collection crossed Rs 1.50 lakh crore mark in every month of the current fiscal and had touched a record high of Rs 1.87 lakh crore in April 2023.
“GST collection has been showing an upward trend on year-on-year basis since the implementation of GST w.e.f. 1st July, 2017... The average gross monthly GST collection in FY 2023-24 now stands at Rs 1.66 lakh crore and is 11 per cent more than that in the same period in the previous financial year,” Sitharaman said.
The average monthly Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection in 2022-23 was over Rs 1.50 lakh crore, higher than Rs 1.23 lakh crore in 2021-22. In 2020-21, the average monthly mop-up was Rs 94,734 crore.
In reply to a separate question, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said the monthly average gross GST collection for 2021-22 and 2022-23 have shown 30 per cent and 22 per cent year-on-year growth respectively.
“GST is paid on self-assessment basis and tax administration at Central and State level is empowered to take action against cases where GST is not paid and short paid. Detection of such cases and recovery of taxes not paid or short paid is a continuous process,” Chaudhary said. He said the government, on the recommendation of the GST Council, has been bringing several reforms in GST and these measures would improve the GST compliance and increase the GST collection.
These include 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, aadhaar authentication for registration, calibrated action on non-filers, stop filers.
Also, system-based analytical tools and system-generated red flag reports are being shared with central as well as state tax authorities to take action against tax evaders. In reply to another question, Chaudhary said the central government, on the recommendation of GST Council, has constituted State Benches of GST Appellate Tribunal.
Giving details of the number of pending appeals over tax demands raised by Central GST authorities, Chaudhary said 14,897 appeals are pending as on October 31, 2023. This is higher than 11,899 appeals pending as of March 31, 2023.
Meanwhile, the finance minister said there is no proposal to relax the existing terms for borrowing capacity of state governments, including Kerala for 2023-24.
Kerala has requested the Centre to allow an additional borrowing equivalent to one per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) over and above the borrowing ceiling fixed for 2023-24 fiscal year.
In a reply in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman said the Centre applies a common yardstick while fixing the annual borrowing limit of all state governments under Article 293(3) of the Constitution.
In doing so, it is guided by the recommendations of the Finance Commission, she said.
To a question on whether the Centre proposes to relax the existing borrowing terms considering the financial crisis of Kerala, Sitharaman replied in the negative. For current fiscal year, the gross borrowing ceiling of Kerala has been fixed at Rs 47,762.58 crore. Out of this, Rs 29,136.71 crore is Open Market Borrowing (OMB) while the rest is borrowing from other sources.
Out of the total OMB, consent has already been given to borrow an amount of Rs 23,852 crore so far, Sitharaman said. Borrowing from other sources is resorted by the state government from time to time as per its requirements.
An amount of Rs 36,231 crore has been provided to the Kerala government as Revenue Deficit Grant from 2021-22 to 2023-24 (till November 2023).
Additionally, to help states enhance their capital expenditure and managing liquidity stress, the Centre is providing 50-year interest free loan to state governments since 2020-21 under Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Expenditure / Investment.
“An amount of Rs 2,141 crore has been released under the scheme to the state government of Kerala during FY 2021-22 and FY 2022-23,” Sitharaman added.