Barring troubled Manipur, which saw a 19% decline in collections in October (based on sales in September), and Himachal Pradesh (-2%) that has been hit hard by rains, all the other states reported healthy growth, numbers released by the finance ministry on Wednesday showed.
In a statement, the finance ministry said collection from domestic sources was 13% higher. A break-up of the components showed that central GST rose 15.4% to top Rs 30,000 crore, while state GST kitty was 14.3% higher at Rs 38,171 crore. The GST levied on goods and services is a mix of central and state GST.
Integrated GST, which is imposed on inter-state sales and imports, saw an 11.7% increase to Rs 91,315 crore. Within this, IGST on imports was estimated to have grown 13% to Rs 42,127 crore. Similarly, cess on imports jumped 56% to nearly Rs 1,300 crore. The cess is levied on domestic and imported sin and luxury goods.
“The remarkable growth in GST collections over the past few months is not only on account of the underlying strong economic factors, but also due to the efforts of the tax authorities in deploying tools to compare data sets to determine short payment and evasion. The growing emphasis on audits led by specific information available on various databases, not only on the GST portal, has led to a significant increase in compliance across sectors and states. This is also reflected in the upsurge in the GST collections across key manufacturing and consuming states,” said MS Mani, partner at Deloitte India.
“This significantly increased collection could be linked to settlement of disputes for FY17-18 as the normal period of limitation was ending on September 30. A mid-year collection of such an increased number is definitely worth a cheer and ongoing festivities driven consumption could help this continue,” added Abhishek Jain, indirect tax head and partner at consulting firm KPMG.
While most states reported double-digit growth, with Sikkim topping the charts with a 29% rise, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and Tripura reported sub-10% increase. Analysts expect robust numbers next month too.
“The rise in collections in the state and UT of Jammu & Kashmir, Mizoram, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Meghalaya, Sikkim, etc indicates increased consumption and taxable base in these parts of the country. The collections in next month are likely to be higher due to festive season,” said Saurabh Agarwal, tax partner at EY.