Goods and Service Tax (GST) collections for May were ₹94,000 crore, the Union Finance Ministry said on Friday.

The figure is lower than April’s mop-up of ₹1.03-lakh crore, but higher than the 2017-18 monthly average of ₹89,885 crore.

The latest tax collections are, technically, for the month of April which were realised in May.

However, Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said the figures are not comparable. In a series of tweets on Friday night, he said: “GST April revenue: Some people are comparing April collection figure with March which is not correct. As per the experience of last 5 years, the average collection of taxes on goods and services during April is approx 7.1 per cent of the annual taxes as against 11 per cent for March...Going by this past experience of indirect taxes and the robust trend in GDP Growth, the April collection of GST indicates a very promising future for indirect tax revenue.”

Earlier in the day, Adhia, who is also the Revenue Secretary, had expressed satisfaction at the collections. “This reflects better compliance after introduction of e-way bills,” he had tweeted. The electronic way (e-way) bill system was launched on April 1 for movement of goods between States.

Filings go up

Adhia said the number of returns filed for April (up to May 31) stood at 62.46 lakh, against 60.47 lakh filed for March (till April 30).

An amount of ₹28,797 crore was realised as Central GST, and ₹34,020 crore as State GST. Under the GST regime, the tax levied is split 50:50 between the Centre and the respective State.

As on May 29, ₹6,696 crore had been released to the States as GST compensation for the month of March. Therefore, the total GST compensation released to the States for the nine months (July 2017 to Match 2018) of FY2017-18 stands at ₹47,844 crore.

Points to growth revival

GST collection in May also indicates that industrial production in April was higher. The government will release industrial production data for April on June 12; it is expected to be higher than the 4.4 per cent recorded for March.

On Thursday, the government said the core sectors registered a healthy growth rate of 4.7 per cent. The core sector is made up of eight industrial divisions, and has a share of 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

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