The Goods and Services Tax (GST) which was rolled out on 1 July 2017 is a consumption tax which is charged on the supply of goods and services in India. The collection under GST is not able to touch the targets and are falling short of it.
- The tax collected for December 2017 was 4 per cent i.e. Rs 86,703 crore lower than the average monthly collection in the 2017-2018 financial year.
- States like Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Goa, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and Delhi are facing problems of the shortfall of revenue after the implementation of the GST.
- The shortfall of revenue in these states ranges between 14 percent to 37 percent in the April-November period.
- Union Territories and Puducherry are facing the biggest revenue shortfall of 43 percent.
The tax collected in January for December is considered to be the lowest in the present fiscal year because the average collection was Rs 96,800 crore per month during April-December and the collections in January for December is approx. Rs 93,000 crore.
- If the budget is to be compared with the current fiscal year, it is estimated that there was a shortfall of approx. Rs 15,000 crore in the GST revenue in the April-December period.
On December 22, 2018, GST Council meeting, it was decided to cut down the GST rates of 23 goods and services which included TV, monitor screens, power banks, exempted frozen, preserved vegetables, etc. This change came into effect on 1 January 2019. It might be considered the reason for the reduction in tax collection. And it might also affect the collections of next month too.
The finance minister accepts that for the beginning, their expectations from the estimates are too high so to look into the matter of shortfall, the GST Council has formed a committee of state finance ministers.
On 22 January 2019, the first meeting was held and the seven-member group of ministers (GoM) headed by Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi met there.
Sushil Modi said that the tax officials will see through the revenue collections of the states. He also said that it is understood that same like the Centre, the states are not able to collect the due GST on services because they do not have experts of tax services. The Group of ministers (GoM) will meet again in the next meeting which will be held in February.
Read Also: Details of All GST Council Meetings: All You Need to Know
Sushil Modi also said that the committee of officials will try to figure out the problems faced by big states in collection revenue because the Centres are doing well as compared to them.
The Central government collected 48,202 crore revenue during April-November 2018 which is higher than the former fiscal year i.e. in the last fiscal year, 48,178 crore revenue was paid.
