GST tax kitty drops to Rs 83,346 crore in November on rate cut

New Delhi: GST collections in November slipped to Rs 83,346 crore as recorded up till November 27, from over Rs 92,000 crore last month, as taxes on most commodities were slashed.

About 50.1 lakh GST returns have been filed for the month of November, a finance ministry statement said. The total number of GSTR 3B returns filed for July, August, September and October 2017 till November 26 is 58.7 lakh, 58.9 lakh, 57.3 lakh and 50.1 lakh respectively.

The revenue collected under GST in October was Rs 95,131 crore, while the government had collected Rs 93,141 crore revenue in September. 

"The states' revenues have been fully protected taking base year revenue as 2015-16 and providing a projected revenue growth rate of 14 per cent," the ministry said. To this effect, the Centre has released a compensation of Rs 10,806 crore to states for July and August and A compensation of Rs 13,695 crore for September and October is being released, it added.

Explaining the dip in tax revenue collection under the new tax regime, the finance ministry said that initially Integrated GST was paid on transfer of goods from one state to another.

"As and when the final transaction of these goods takes place, the credit for IGST is being utilised for payment of SGST and CGST and therefore, the inflow of new taxes is low," it said.

Moreover, the GST Council, earlier this month pruned majority of the items in the top 28 per cent slab and singificantly brought down rates for nearly 200 items. "..it would naturally have some implication on the revenues of the government," the ministry said.