The Goods and Services Tax collections for January 2021 was a record high of Rs 1,19,847 crore, the Ministry of Finance said on Sunday, a day before it unveiled the country’s Union budget. The highest monthly GST collections before this was in December last year at Rs 1,15,174 crore.
The collections, which were 8% higher as compared to the same month last year, was in line with the recent trend of recovery in GST revenues, the finance ministry said in a statement.
The Central GST collections came at Rs 21,923 crore, while those under the heads of State GST and Integrated GST stood at Rs 29,014 crore and Rs 60,288 crore, respectively. The Cess was Rs 8,622 crore, and the total number of GSTR-3B Returns filed was 90 lakh.
During the month, revenue from the import of goods was 16% higher and the revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) were 6% than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year, the finance ministry said.
With this, the monthly GST revenues have been above Rs 1 lakh crore for the last four months and a steep increasing trend over this period are clear indicators of rapid economic recovery following the coronavirus pandemic, it added.
Closer monitoring against fake-billing, deep data analytics using data from multiple sources including GST, income-tax and customs IT systems and effective tax administration have also contributed to the steady increase in tax revenue over last few months, the government said.
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