Maiden tax collections in India under the Goods and Services Tax has raked in over £9.2 billion in returns for the month of July - crossing the estimated target. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that extrapolating the targets in the annual Budget, the central government's July tax revenue should be £ 4.8 billion and that of states £4.3 billion. He added that the total combined target of the two is £ 9.10 billion.
As per a Finance Ministry statement, tax returns filed for the first time under GST amount to a total of £9.22 billion till last week. Out of this £1.48 billion was collected under Central GST head, whereas £2.27 billion came in as State GST. Another £4.74 billion was collected as Integrated GST, which is levied on movement of goods and services from one state to another. Jaitley said that out of the total IGST collection, £2.09 billion was levied on imports. Tax payers have paid £719.8 million as cess charged against demerit good.
He said the number is likely to go up after all taxes are accounted for and the tax collection number would “somewhat increase” with more compliances. The FM said that GST revenues would exceed the target when all taxpayers file returns, even without compensation cess being factored in. The tax revenue figures are on account of 64.43 per cent of the total 59,57,000 taxpayers registered with GST. This figure does not account for those who registered with GSTN in August, and dealers under the composition scheme.
