GST collection in May falls to Rs94,016 crore

New Delhi: India collected Rs94,016 crore as goods and services tax (GST) in May, down from a record Rs1.03 trillion collected in April but higher than the monthly average of Rs89,885 crore in 2017-18.

To be sure, the higher GST collection in April were partly because of payments of tax arrears for the year ended 31 March.

Finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia tweeted that the GST collection in May reflects better compliance after the introduction of e-way bills.

GST e-way bills were made mandatory for all interstate movement of goods from 1 April. For movement of goods within a state, the rollout was done in a phase-wise manner with all states expected to be covered by 3 June.

The number of GST returns filed for April up to 31 May also rose to 6.246 million as against 6.047 million for the previous month.

The government is targeting Rs1 trillion in GST collection every month and is hoping that anti-tax evasion measures, such as e-way bill, invoice matching and reverse charge mechanism (wherein a registered buyer would have to pay tax on behalf of an unregistered seller), will improve compliance.