1st GSTR for July 2017 Exceeds Estimates and Expectations – So Far So Good

GST or Goods and Services Tax that came into force from July 1st 2017 is a unified tax which incorporates all the levies into one. The GST collections for the Month of July 2017 speak volumes of how successful GST has been. The Govt. itself seems pleasantly surprised, since despite many businesses being at default in filing their GST returns, the actual collection is way more than the estimated collection.

The collection for the first month when it was implemented i.e. July 2017 the total estimated amount that should’ve come into the Government’s exchequer was ₹91,000 crores whereas the amount that actually came in is ₹92,283 crores out of which Rs. 14,894 crores is the central GST (CGST), ₹22,722 crores is State GST (SGST) and ₹47,469 crores is Integrated GST (IGST) including ₹20,964 from imports.

Further the collection amounting to compensation cess is ₹7,198 crores out of which ₹598 crores is from imports.

According to the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley this collection has come in from 64.42% of the total taxpayers, alone and once the 100% of the taxpayers submit their returns the collection will substantially increase.

Apart from the State GST, the IGST i.e. Integrated GST is further divided into a certain amount that goes into the State Exchequer and the rest of the amount goes into the Central Govt’s exchequer. As of now the specific collection by respective State governments and the centre are not known but will soon be disclosed.

It is expected that these figures will shoot up substantially as the compliance of the same increases and also with the entire population of tax payers who have migrated to GSTN and those who haven’t fully migrated file their returns.

As of now, looking at the figures keeping in mind that GST has been only introduced in July 2017 the initial response is good, however in order to get a clear perspective of the situation we would have to wait for a few more months until all the tax payers file their returns as well as once the consumers start reaping the benefits of the same.