India GST collections surge to a record $240 billion in FY24

Revenues from goods and services tax (GST) collections in March soared to ₹1.78 trillion (about $20 billion), the second highest ever mop-up from the levy that came into force in June 2017, data released by the finance ministry showed.

The 11.5% year-on-year surge in GST revenue was driven by a robust growth in domestic transactions at 17.6%.

With the strong collection in the final month of the fiscal, the mop-up for the full year rose to  ₹20.18 trillion (about $240 billion), exceeding an 11.7% increase from the ₹20 trillion collected in the previous year.

The average monthly collection for the fiscal came in at ₹1.68 trillion, surpassing the previous year’s average of ₹1.5 trillion.

The net GST for the current fiscal, after refunds of ₹1.65 trillion, was ₹18.01 trillion, marking a 13.4% increase from last year.

A breakdown of the collections in March shows central GST of ₹34,532 crore; state GST of ₹43,746 crore; integrated GST of ₹87,947 crore, including ₹40,322 crore collected on imported goods; and cess of ₹12,259 crore, including ₹996 crore collected on imported goods.

For the full fiscal, central GST collections were at ₹3.75 trillion, state GST of ₹4.71 trillion, integrated GST of ₹10.26 trillion (including ₹4.83 trillion on imported goods), and cess of ₹1.45 trillion (including 11,915 crore on imported goods).

Central GST is the part of revenue collected by the Centre on intra-state sales, while state GST is part of the levy collected by the state government for sales within the state, and integrated GST is collected by the central government for inter-state sales.

As integrated GST is collected on inter-state sales, it needs to be apportioned between the state where the product was made and the state where it is consumed

Under the inter-governmental settlement, or the process of distributing the integrated GST collected between the central and state governments, the Centre settled ₹43,264 crore to CGST and ₹37,704 crore to SGST. This translates to a total revenue of ₹77,796 crore for central GST and ₹81,450 crore for state GST for March after regular settlement.

For the full fiscal, the central government settled ₹4,87,039 crore to central GST and ₹4,12,028 crore to state GST from the integrated GST collected.

The government had in a white paper earlier said that structural reforms like the introduction of GST and the digitalization of economic transactions have led to the greater formalization of the economy and, hence, expanded the tax net and enhanced tax compliance.