New Delhi, Apr 1: Indicating rise in business activity, the Gross Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue for the month of March 2024 witnessed the second highest collection ever at Rs 1.78 lakh crore with a 11.5 per cent year-on-year growth.

This surge was driven by a significant rise in GST collection from domestic transactions at 17.6 per cent. GST revenue net of refunds for March 2024 is Rs 1.65 lakh crore which is growth of 18.4 per cent over same period last year, Ministry of Finance said in a statement.

With record second highest ever collection in the last month of March, the fiscal year 2023-24 also ended with a milestone with total gross GST collection of Rs 20.14 lakh crore exceeding Rs 20 lakh crore received in the previous financial years. The yearly collection is 11.7 per cent increase from the previous year.

“Record collections exceeding Rs 20 lakh crore during 2023-24 demonstrates the economic resurgence across sectors and was possible due to the various measures taken by the GST authorities to improve compliance and stamp out evasion,” MS Mani, Partner Deloitte India, said in a statement.

The big focus on the comparison of tax payer behavior across tax and corporate databases has also made business convinced on the need to be compliant not only their activities, but also keep track of their vendors tax behavior and ensure that entire value chain becomes compliant, he added.

The average monthly collection for this fiscal year stands at Rs 1.68 lakh crore, surpassing the previous year’s average of Rs 1.5 lakh crore. GST revenue net of refunds as of March 2024 for the current fiscal year is Rs 18.01 lakh crore which is a growth of 13.4 per cent over same period last year.

The record collection was due to positive performance across components, the statement said, adding that the Central GST (CGST) stood at Rs 34,532 crore, State GST (SGST) was Rs 43,746 crore and the Integrated GST (IGST) was Rs 87,947 crore including Rs 40,322 crore collected on imported goods, as per the breakdown of March 2024 collections.

A Cess of Rs 12,259 crore, including Rs 996 crore collected on imported goods.

Similar positive trends are observed in the entire fiscal year 2023-24 collections. As the CGST was Rs 3,75,710 crore; SGST of Rs 4,71,195 crore; IGST stood at Rs 10,26,790 crore, including Rs 4,83,086 crore collected on imported goods, the official statement said and added that the Cess of Rs 1,44,554 crore, including Rs 11,915 crore collected on imported goods.

Giving account of Inter-Governmental Settlement, the government said that in the month of March, 2024, the Central Government settled Rs 43,264 crore to CGST and Rs 37,704 crore to SGST from the IGST collected.
This translates to a total revenue of Rs 77,796 crore for CGST and Rs 81,450 crore for SGST for March, 2024 after regular settlement. For the FY 2023-24, the central government settled Rs 4,87,039 crore to CGST and Rs 4,12,028 crore to SGST from the IGST collected.

Since all major states have recorded double digit growth in GST collection and this being also a barometer for economic activities as it’s a transaction based tax, it can be reasonably inferred that the growth is across regions and sectors, Deloitte India said.

UNI