GST collection hits 1L- cr in October after 5 months

■ ■ In a relief to the government, GST collections in October crossed ` 1 lakh crore mark after a gap of 5 months on the back of festive demand.

This will be a relief to the government which is struggling to stick to the fiscal deficit target.

“GST collections for October 2018 have crossed ` 1 lakh crore. The success of GST is lower rates, lesser evasion, higher compliance, only one tax and negligible interference by taxation authorities,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said.

The finance ministry on Thursday said 67.45 lakh businesses filed GST returns in October and deposited ` 1,00,710 crore as taxes.

The states which achieved “extra- ordinary growth” in total taxes collected include Kerala ( 44 per cent), Jharkhand ( 20 per cent), Rajasthan ( 14 per cent), Uttarakhand ( 13 per cent) and Maharashtra ( 11 per cent), an official statement said.

GST revenue had first crossed the landmark figure in April when the collections were ` 1,03,458 crore.

Since then collections have maintained above ` 90,000 crore mark. The mop up stood at ` 94,016 crore in May, ` 95,610 crore in June, ` 96,483 crore in July, ` 93,960 crore in August and ` 94,442 crore in September.

Of the ` 1 lakh crore total gross GST revenue collected in October, central GST is ` 16,464 crore, state GST is ` 22,826 crore, IGST is ` 53,419 crore ( including ` 26,908 crore collected on imports) and cess is ` 8,000 crore. The October revenue collections reflect the purchase and sales activities conducted in the month of September.