Revised and simpler tax return forms as well as lower refunds will likely boost revenue collection from Goods and Services Tax (GST), which the government expects to touch to Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month from the next financial year (2019-20).

“GST collections should be around Rs 1.5 lakh crore per month from next year. New return form will also help in tax evasion,” a senior government official told Moneycontrol.

In addition, the impact of refunds related to transitional credit will also be over, the official said.

The government has set the target of over Rs 12 lakh crore for the financial year 2018-19, which can be achieved if the average monthly mop up is around Rs 1 lakh crore, as compared with Rs 89,885 crore in 2017-18.

The finance ministry releases gross tax collection on the first day of every month. Refunds that the government has to pay to taxpayers in the form of input tax credit is not reflected in the data.

“Revenue collection is expected to improve as refunds may go down to Rs 3,000-4000 crore every month,” the official said.

While the government doesn’t release data related to refunds, it learnt that it amounts to roughly Rs 5,000-6000 crore every month.

Even as the GST Council has taken measures against tax evasion such as rollout of e-way bill and implementation of tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS), the government believes that the new return filing system will plug revenue leakages.

In its meeting in July, the Council approved simplified return filing for taxpayers with lesser details called Sahaj and Sugam and was expected to be made effective from January, 2019.

The official quoted above said that it may take some more months for the new return filing system to become a reality.

The IT backbone GSTN had last year had to face harsh criticism from the businesses owing to massive technical glitches when taxpayers logged in to file returns.

A failure on the technology front yet again may be disruptive, especially with general election half a year away.

Till now (April-October), the government has collected Rs 6.78 lakh crore revenue from GST. Achieving the revenue collection target is crucial as it has a direct bearing on the fiscal deficit, which is a gap between government’s revenue and expenditure.

In the last seven months, tax mop-up has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore twice—in April and October. While revenue in April was higher as businesses generally pay arrears for some of the previous months, mop-up in October was Rs 1 lakh crore due to the onset of the festive season.

Traditionally, government garners maximum tax during the third quarter (October-December) of any financial year as consumption picks up substantially during the festive season.

However, another official in the government official said that sustained revenue of Rs 1 lakh crore may not be garnered as integrated GST (IGST) or tax on inter-state supply of goods and services could witness a dip as imports generally take a hit owing to Chinese new year.