GST collections have crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark for the third month in a row in January with improved compliance and plugging of evasion, sources said on Friday.

According to provisional numbers, total GST revenue was Rs 1.1 lakh crore in January, they said. The GST collection is in line with the target set by Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey after a high-level meeting with senior tax officials earlier this month.

Domestic GST collection during the month so far is around Rs 86,453 crore while Rs 23,597 crore has been collected through IGST and cess collection. The total collection of GST revenue in December has come at Rs 1.03 lakh crore.

Going by the provisional numbers, growth in the domestic GST collection comes about to 11.5 per cent while the IGST on import of goods contracted by 6 per cent, sources said. The number of GSTR 3B returns filed till Thursday was 82.8 lakh.

The government this month set an ambitious target of Rs 1.1 lakh crore monthly GST revenue for the remaining part of the current fiscal and asked taxmen to step up efforts to achieve the goal.

To augment revenue collection, the Revenue Secretary revised GST collection target to Rs 1.25 lakh crore for the last month of this financial year with specific focus on fraudulent input tax credit (ITC) claims as found in data analytics review.

It was empahsised GST authorities would look into the mismatch of supply and purchase invoices, data analytics of mismatch in GSTR-1, GSTR-2A and GSTR-3B, failure of filing returns, over invoicing, recuperation of fake or excess refunds availed beyond the permissible limits etc.

Around 40,000 companies have been red-flagged for excess or fraudulent ITC availment and other tax related wrongful issues through data analytics, out of 1.2 crore GST registrants and focus would be on these identified taxpayers, sources said.

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