In a major push to the country’s GST collections, festival earnings and resumption of economic activities have led the nation’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections to top INR 1 lakh crore in October for the first time in the financial year 2020-21, rising 10.2 percent year-on-year to INR 1.05 lakh crore.
Finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said the GST collections in September and October were higher than the corresponding months last year, and point to a sure sign of recovery, and that this is expected to soon reflect in corporate tax and personal income tax as well, while speaking to the media.
The October GST collections mirror the transactions made in September this year. The e-way bills figure for October was 21 percent higher year-on-year. For September, this figure was 10 percent higher.
“When we analyse all these figures, we’ll see that collection is recovering, and in certain areas, it is also going into the positive zone. We have to watch for the next few months and then we will have a good idea of recovery and growth trajectory.”
~Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Finance Secretary
“The collections… indicate the definitive revival of consumption and festival spends across the economy”. said MS Mani, Senior director, Deloitte.
The continued momentum of this GST trend will lead to narrowing of the fiscal deficit for FY21 and would revive business confidence across sectors as the impact of the reopening of the economy gets translated into GST collections, Mani said.
The finance ministry also said 80 lakh GSTR-3B returns were filed during the month.
