The Finance Ministry on Thursday, 1 April, declared that GST revenue collection in March had touched a record high of over Rs 1.23 lakh crore, an increase of 27 percent over last year, indicating a trend in the recovery of GST and the economy as a whole.
“The Ministry has settled Rs 21,879 crore to CGST and Rs 17,230 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. In addition, Centre has also settled Rs 28,000 crore as IGST ad-hoc settlement in a 50:50 ratio between the Centre and the states/UTs. The total revenue of the Centre and the states after regular and ad-hoc settlements in the month of March’ 2021 is Rs 58,852 crore for CGST and Rs 60,559 crore for the SGST,” read a statement from the Ministry.
The Centre also released compensation of Rs 30,000 crore in March 2021. Revenues from import of goods has been 70 percent higher, and that from domestic transactions have been 17 percent higher.
“GST revenues have been crossing the Rs 1-lakh-crore mark at a stretch for the last six months and a steep increasing trend over this period is clear indicator of rapid economic recovery post pandemic,” the statement read.
The Centre concluded that closer monitoring of fake-billing, deep data analysis using information from multiple sources, including GST, Income-tax and Customs IT systems, and effective tax administration had contributed to the steady increase in tax revenue this financial year.
CBDT Issues Refunds of Over Rs 2.62 Lakh Crore
The Finance Ministry noted that the financial year 2020-21 had been “ a year full of challenges, both for the world as well as for India, due to the COVID-19 pandemic” and the Centre had implemented “various measures to ease the economic fallout of the pandemic”. In line with this, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has expeditiously issued pending refunds.
“To provide immediate relief to taxpayers, both individuals and business entities, the government has issued income tax refunds in majority of the pending cases with alacrity,” the statement read.
The CBDT has issued refunds of over 2.62 lakh crore to more than 2.38 crore tax payers from 1st April, 2020 to 31st March, 2021, an increase of 43.2 percent from last year.
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