GST collections rise 11% YoY to Rs 1.59 lakh crore in August

The Indian government expects its Goods and Services Tax collections to rise by 12 percent in 2023-24.

The government's Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections climbed 10.8 percent year-on-year in August to Rs 1.59 lakh crore, the Ministry of Finance said on September 1.

At Rs 1.59 lakh crore, the August GST collections is 3.7 percent lower than the Rs 1.65 lakh crore collected in July and is the sixth month in a row that the monthly mop-up has come in above the Rs 1.5-lakh-crore mark.

As per the 2023-24 Budget, the Centre expects its GST collections to rise by 12 percent in the current financial year.

Source: Ministry of Finance

Of the total, Central GST was Rs 28,328 crore, State GST was Rs 35,794 crore, Integrated GST was Rs 83,251 crore, and compensation cess was Rs 11,695 crore.

In August, the government settled Rs 37,581 crore to Central GST and Rs 31,408 crore to State GST from Integrated GST. As a result, the total revenue for the month post settlement was Rs 65,909 crore for the Centre and Rs 67,202 crore for State GST.

"During the month, revenue from import of goods was 3 percent higher and the revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) are 14 percent higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year," the finance ministry said in a statement.

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"These GST collections, coming in the backdrop of the good GDP growth in the first quarter heralds the onset of the festive season where consumption increases occur," noted MS Mani, partner at Deloitte India.

"All the key manufacturing and consuming states have shown an increase ranging from 10 percent to 23 percent indicating that the overall increase in domestic consumption is fairly widespread across states," Mani added.

The latest GST data takes the average monthly collection in 2023-24 to Rs 1.66 lakh crore.

Monthly GST collections have risen over the years. From averaging under Rs 1 lakh crore per month in 2017-18 - its first year - collections rose rapidly after the pandemic-hit 20202-21 to average Rs 1.51 lakh crore in 2022-23.