Govt collects Rs 1.33 lakh crore GST in February, cess collection crosses Rs 10,000 cr for first time

This is the fifth time that the GST collection has crossed the Rs 1.3 lakh crore mark. The GST cess collection crossed the Rs 10,000 crore mark for the first time since its implementation.

Keeping its robust collections intact, the government collected Rs 1,33,026 crore GST in the month of February.

This is the fifth time that the GST collection has crossed the Rs 1.3 lakh crore mark. The GST cess collection crossed the Rs 10,000 crore mark for the first time since its implementation.

The government had collected Rs 1.38 lakh crore in January .

The CGST collection stood at Rs 24,435 crore, SGST at Rs 30,779 crore, IGST at Rs 67,471crore (including Rs 33,837 crore collected on import of goods) and cess at Rs 10,340 crore.

 

"The revenues for the month of February 2022 are 18% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year and 26% higher than the GST revenues in February 2020. During the month, revenues from import of goods was 38% higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 12% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year," the official release said.

The government has settled Rs 26,347 crore to CGST and Rs 21,909 crore to SGST from IGST. The total revenue of Centre and the States in the month of February 2022 after regular settlement is Rs 50,782 crore for CGST and Rs 52,688 crore for the SGST.

The revenue jump comes despite the restrictions that were put in place in the wake of the spike in COVID cases due to Omicron.

The robust collection points to the fact that the third wave may not have dented much of the economic activity in the fourth quarter.

"GST revenues remained expectedly resilient in February 2022, as the third wave had a limited impact on industrial activity and GST e way bill generation in January 2022. WIth the robust rise in GST e way bill generation in February 2022, we expect a sequential uptick in the GST revenues in the current month. Moreover, CGST revenues are likely to exceed the Government of India's FY2022 RE by up to Rs. 0.3 trillion, complementing the anticipated overshooting in direct taxes," Aditi Nayar, chief economist, ICRA, said.

Source::: THE ECONOMIC TIMES,  dated 01/03/2022.