GST compensation to states falls to ₹11,900 cr in Aug-Sept

NEW DELHI: Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation paid to states by the centre has declined to over ₹11,900 crore during August-September, an official said.

The bi-monthly GST compensation paid during the JuneJuly period was ₹14,930 crore, nearly four-fold jump from ₹3,899 crore paid in April and May.

“Over ₹11,900 crore has been released to the states from GST compensation fund during August-September after regular and ad-hoc settlement of IGST fund,” an official told Press Trust of India.

The government collected a record ₹100,710 crore from GST in the month of October.

The returns filed and taxes collected in October reflect purchase and sale activities of September.

The government has settled

TOTAL REVENUE EARNED BY THE STATE GOVTS AFTER REGULAR AND PROVISIONAL SETTLEMENT WAS ₹52,934 CR IN OCTOBER

₹15,107 crore to states GST from Integrated GST (IGST) as regular settlement.

Further, ₹15,000 crore has been settled with the states from the balance IGST available with the centre on provisional basis at the end of October.

Total revenue earned by the state governments after regular and provisional settlement was ₹52,934 crore in October.

Ten states which are facing maximum revenue shortfall during April-August are Puducherry (42%), Punjab and Himachal Pradesh (36% each), Uttarakhand (35%), Jammu and Kashmir (28%), Chhattisgarh (26%), Goa (25%), Odisha (24%), Karnataka and Bihar (20%).

The states faced an average 16% shortfall in GST mop-up in the first year of implementation (July 2017-March 2018), which has come down to 13% during April-August of the current fiscal.

Finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia has already held discussions with tax officials in six states—Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Uttarakhand—to shore up revenues.

While only six states—Mizoram, Arunachal, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh—are facing revenue surplus in the current fiscal, 25 states are staring at a revenue shortfall and have to be compensated by the centre.

In 2017-18, the centre had released ₹41,147 crore to the states as GST compensation to ensure that the revenue of the states is protected at the level of 14% over the base year tax collection in 2015-16.