GST revenue fell by 4% in March due to COVID-19 lockdown

GST collection fallen by 4 per cent in March.

Lockdown situation due to coronavirus pandemic has affected businesses in various ways. This in turn has impacted the gross revenue collection of Goods and Services Tax (GST). GST collection has fallen by 4 per cent in March which totalled to Rs. 97,597 crore comparing to a year ago period in the same month. The collections may further fall due to COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown.  

Out of the gross revenue collected, the central GST was Rs 19,183 crore, state GST Rs 25,601 crore and Integrated GST Rs 44,508 crore (including Rs 18,056 crore collected on imports) and cess Rs 8,306 crore (including Rs 841 crore collected on imports).

The total number of GSTR 3B returns filed for the month of February up to March 31 is Rs 76.5 lakh, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance.

The government settled Rs 19,718 crore to CGST and Rs 14,915 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement.

In addition, the centre apportioned unsettled balance IGST of Rs 6,000 crore on ad-hoc basis in the ratio of 50:50 between the centre and the states/UTs.

The total revenue earned by the centre and state governments after regular settlement in March is Rs 41,901 crore for CGST and Rs 43,516 crore for SGST. “The GST revenue during March from domestic transactions have shown a negative growth of four per cent over the revenue during the month of March 2019,” said the statement.

Taking into account the GST collected from the imports of goods, the total revenue during March also decreased by 8 per cent in comparison to the revenue during March last year.

During this month, the GST on imports of goods showed a negative growth of -23 per cent as compared to March 2019.

For the full financial year 2019-2020, the GST for domestic transaction showed a growth rate of 8 per cent over the revenues during last year.

During the year, GST from imports of goods fell down by 8 per cent as compared to last year. Overall gross GST revenues grew at four per cent over the last year’s GST revenue.

Source : PIB