New Delhi: The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections fell for the second consecutive month to Rs 80,808 crore in November as the government slashed taxes and tweaked rules to make the new indirect tax more acceptable to the public and traders.
The collection, under the nation-wide indirect tax regime, had surpassed Rs 92,000 crore in September, but fell to Rs 83,346 crore in October. As per the data available, the GST collections in July was over Rs 95,000 crore, while in August the figure was over Rs 91,000 crore.
For the month of November, around 53.06 lakh returns have been filed in December. Last month, the GST Council had slashed tax rates on 200 items including shampoo, detergent and beauty products among others. The GST on restaurants too was cut to 5 per cent from as high as 18 per cent. As many as 178 items of daily use were shifted from the top tax bracket of 28 per cent to 18 per cent.
Of the Rs 80,808 crore collected, Rs 7,798 crore has been garnered as compensation cess in November — the fifth month of GST roll out. Besides,Rs 13,089 crore have been collected as Central GST, Rs 18,650 crore as State GST, Rs 41,270 crore as Integrated Goods and Services Tax.
Further, Rs 10,348 crore is being transferred from IGST to CGST account and Rs 14,488 crore is being transferred from IGST to SGST account by way of settlement of funds on account of cross utilisation of IGST credit for payment of CGST and SGST, respectively or due to inter-state business to consumer transactions.
Thus, a total amount of Rs 24,836 crore is being transferred from IGST to CGST/SGST account by way of settlement, the finance ministry said.
Thus, the total collection of CGST and SGST in December, 2017 (up to December 25) (for November month) is Rs 23,437 crore and Rs 33,138 crore, respectively. Meanwhile, the 25th GST Council meeting is scheduled for January 18, 2018 in Delhi.
