August GST Collection At Rs 90,669 Crore

For months till December, taxpayers are required to file GSTR-3B returns for every month on 20th of the next month. In July, the government’s GST collection stood at roughly Rs 94,063 crore, as per data as on August 31.

Collections from various categories for August stood as follows, according to a release by the finance ministry on Tuesday.

• Central GST: Rs 14,402 crore
• State GST: Rs 21,067 crore
• Integrated GST: Rs 47,377 crore (of which Rs 23,180 crore was IGST from imports)
• Compensation Cess: Rs 7,823 crore

The GST collections in August are along the same lines as the trend seen in July but the interesting question is how many taxpayers have claimed input tax credits to reduce liability computations, Amit Sarkar, head of indirect tax at BDO India told BloombergQuint. “Possibly once the GSTN portal allows for seamless flow of credits, the true picture of tax collections through introduction of GST would emerge,” he added.

Of the 68.20 lakh eligible taxpayers required to file monthly returns for August, 37.63 lakh GSTR-3B returns were filed as on September 25. In July, out of 59.57 lakh eligible taxpayers, 38.38 lakh had filed returns.

The collection figures do not include GST paid by 10.24 lakh assessees who opted for the composition scheme, the finance ministry release said.

With the government extending the last date for filing returns to October, a lot of assessees may have deferred their filings, Ritesh Kanodia, partner at Dhruva Advisors said. He expects a clearer picture of where the revenue is going by November or December.

“There are a lot of challenges faced by taxpayers on how returns need to be filed,” Kanodia said. “People are struggling on filing these forms.”