India collected Rs 1.56 lakh crore as Goods and Services Tax (GST) in January, the finance ministry said on January 31.
At Rs 1.56 lakh crore, the GST collections for January are second only to the record Rs 1.68 lakh crore collected in April 2022. It is up 10.6 percent from the first month of 2022 and 4.3 percent higher from December 2022.
GST collections stood at Rs 1.5 lakh crore in December 2022 and Rs 1.41 lakh crore in January 2022.
The latest number means GST collections have now exceeded the Rs 1.4-lakh crore mark for 11 months in a row.
Source: Ministry of Finance
The finance ministry said in a statement that the data reflected GST collections made up to 5 pm on January 31, suggesting the final number could be even higher.
The January GST collection numbers come just over 12 hours before Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents the 2023-24 Union Budget in Parliament at 11 am on February 1.
While tax collections have increased robustly in 2022-23, economists see them growing at a slower pace next year on account of lower nominal GDP growth.
The Centre is expected to assume a nominal GDP growth rate of 10.5-11 percent for 2023-24 to arrive at its budget estimates, sharply lower than the 15.4 percent growth for this year.
Nominal GDP growth is seen falling due to both, lower inflation as well as weaker real growth, with the Economic Survey released on January 31 forecasting a GDP growth rate of 6.5 percent for 2023-24 – 50 basis points below the statistics ministry's first advance estimate of 7 percent for 2022-23.
In January, Central GST collections stood at Rs 28,963 crore, while State GST was Rs 36,730 crore. Integrated GST was Rs 79,599 crore and cess Rs 10,630 crore.
The government settled Rs 38,507 crore to Central GST and Rs 32,624 crore to State GST from Integrated GST. As such, post-settlement, the total revenue of the Centre and the states in January was Rs 67,470 crore and Rs 69,354 crore, respectively.
"The revenues in the current financial year up to the month of January 2023 are 24 percent higher than the GST revenues during the same period last year," the finance ministry said.
Source: Ministry of Finance
"Over the last year, various efforts have been made to increase the tax base and improve compliance. The percentage of filing of GST returns (GSTR-3B) and of the statement of invoices (GSTR-1), till the end of the month, has improved significantly over years... In the quarter Oct-Dec 2022, total 2.42 crore GST returns were filed till end of next month as compared to 2.19 crore in the same quarter in the last year," it added.
