Even as compared to the August revenues in 2019-20 of Rs 98,202 crore, this is a growth of 14%. The collections are for the supplies made in the month of July, when lockdown restrictions were relaxed for most parts of the country.
The government collected Rs 1.12 lakh crore as goods and services tax (GST) for August 2021, making it the second consecutive month of revenues clicking higher than Rs 1 lakh crore, marking a clear trend of economic recovery.
August collections are 30% higher than Rs 86,449 crore during the same month last year, however they're lower than July collections of Rs 1.16 lakh crore.
Even as compared to the August revenues in 2019-20 of Rs 98,202 crore, this is a growth of 14%. The collections are for the supplies made in the month of July, when lockdown restrictions were relaxed for most parts of the country.
"Coupled with economic growth, anti-evasion activities, especially action against fake billers have also been contributing to the enhanced GST collections," the finance ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
"The robust GST revenues are likely to continue in the coming months too," the ministry said.
After posting above Rs 1 lakh crore mark for nine months in a row, GST collection dropped below Rs. 1 lakh crore in June 2021 due to the second wave of Covid. However, with the easing out of Covid restrictions, GST collection for July and August 2021 indicates that the economy is recovering at a fast pace, the ministry added.
Experts said that the numbers looked promising and with vaccination rates rising, higher revenue is expected in the coming months.
Abhishek Jain, tax partner at EY, said, "With increasing rate of vaccination and business supplies picking up the uptrend is expected to continue in coming months."
"Manufacturing states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has shown an increase of over 30% as compared to last year which is a sure shot sign of economic recovery," said Rajat Bose, partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.
But some cautioned against the strength of recovery in the ongoing quarter, going by the lower-than-expected core sector growth, and moderation in the August manufacturing PMI.
"The dip in the GST collections has belied the healthy improvement in the GST e-way bills to a daily average of 2.1 million in July 2021 from 1.8 million in June 2021, which was reflective of the lifting of restrictions especially across the Southern states," Aditi Nayar, chief economist at ratings agency ICRA said.
E-way bills for the month ended August 30, stood at 63.3 million, lower than July bill generation of 64.1 million. However, daily average for August stands at 2.1 million, higher than daily average of 2.06 million in July.
Of the gross GST revenue collected in the month of August 2021, central GST was Rs 20,522 crore, state GST was Rs 26,605 crore, integrated GST was Rs 56,247 crore (including Rs 26,884 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess was Rs 8,646 crore (including Rs 646 crore collected on import of goods).
The government has settled Rs 23,043 crore to CGST and Rs 19,139 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, Centre has also settled Rs 24,000 crore as IGST ad-hoc settlement in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and States/UTs.
The total revenue of Centre and the States after regular and ad-hoc settlements in the month of August' 2021 is Rs 55,565 crore for CGST and Rs 57,744 crore for the SGST.
The ad hoc settlement of unapportioned IGST will also help to ease the cash flows of the Centre and the states, experts noted.
During the month, the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 27% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.