According to tax officials, the Government has so far collected around Rs 42,000 crores in the form of taxes in the first-month of returns filing under the new indirect tax regime. It is expected that the revenue will further increase as the filing date for the first month returns has been extended to 25th August and the filing cycle shuts down later this week.
A senior GST official explained that nearly Rs 15,000 crore has been collected in the form of Integrated GST (IGST), which is imposed on the interstate movement of goods, and another Rs 5,000 crore has come in the form of cess, additional cess levies on demerit of goods like SUVs cars and luxury cars. However, the remaining Rs 22,000 crore revenue has been generated in the form of Central GST (CGST) and State GST (SGST), which would be equally distributed to the Union and the State Governments.
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“Tax deposited till this morning was Rs 42,000 crore, said an official. Till now 10 lakh taxpayers have submitted their returns and another 20 lakh have logged in and saved filing form at the portal. “We are seeing good compliance and our estimation is that 90-95 per cent of the assesses will file returns and pay taxes.”
GST, which has been touted as the biggest tax reform since Independence, came into effect from 1st July across the country. Under GST, the registered businesses are liable to file the tax returns every month.
The deadline for filing the first month returns has been extended to 25th August as the tax return filing website (GST portal) was closed a day before the 20th August, which was the previous deadline. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime removes several Central and State levies such as VAT, service tax, and excise duty. The revenue earned through new regime would be equally distributed between the Centre and States.
Last year in July, The government had earned revenue of Rs 31,782 crore and Rs 19,600 crore through excise duty and service taxes respectively. So fat 72 lakh taxpayers have migrated from previous tax regime to new indirect tax regime, and about 50 lakh taxpayers were able to complete the migration process. Apart from these, 15 lakh fresh registrations have been enrolled in the GST system.
According to the officials, it is expected that a total of 60 lakh taxpayers will file returns and pay taxes for the transactions performed in July month. According to the GST law, any of the registered persons who have not provided the details of inward supplies, outward supplies and did not pay the returns by the due date will have to pay Rs 100 as the late fee for each day subject to a maximum amount of Rs 5,000.
Apart from these, any of the taxpayers who fail to make the payment of tax within the mentioned time period shall be liable to pay an interest at the rate of 18 percent from the day following the tax due date. The revenues earned from customs duty and IGST from imports after the implementation of GST have almost doubled to reach Rs 30,000 crore in the month of July, as compared to Rs 16,000 crore which was collected in the similar time period last year in the previous tax regime.