India's GST collection records 13% increase to ₹1.72 lakh crore in October 

The gross GST revenue for the month of October, 2023 is 13% higher than that in the same month last year. During the month, revenue from domestic transactions (including import of services) is also 13% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.

(GST collection Green: FY2022-23 and Yellow: FY2023-24)

The average gross monthly GST collection in the FY 2023-24 now stands at Rs. 1.66 lakh crore and is 11% more than that in the same period in the previous financial year.

The government has settled ₹42,873 crore to CGST and ₹36,614 crore to SGST from IGST. The total revenue of Centre and the States in the month of October, 2023 after regular settlement is ₹72,934 crore for CGST and ₹74,785 crore for SGST.

Notably, this October collection represents not only the second-highest monthly collection this year but also the second-highest since the introduction of GST. With the current fiscal year's GST collection totaling ₹11,64,511 crore, which is just 35% less than the full-year collection of the previous fiscal year, it indicates a robust revenue trajectory.

This robust performance is seen as a testament to a strong start to the festive season, as GST collections have seen a 10% spike over August, September, and October. Although inflation has likely impacted certain items and increased the applicable GST, this surge underscores the consumer's enthusiasm during the festive season.

Furthermore, in October, compensation cess has risen 22.8% YoY, while CGST is up 15.4%, SGST 14.3% and IGST is up 11.66%. This notable increase in cess is attributed to higher consumption of goods such as motor vehicles rather than items like soft drinks and cigarettes.

With the festive season, GST collections just 33% shy of the total for 2022 (August-December), or conversely, having already covered 66% of last year's festive season GST collections, these figures signal a promising outlook for the economy and consumer sentiment.

Meanwhile, experts see the trend of continued growth in the remaining part of the year too.

MS Mani, Partner, Deloitte India says, “The remarkable growth in GST collections over the past few months is not only on account of the underlying strong economic factors, but also due to the efforts of the tax authorities in deploying tools to compare data sets to determine short payment and evasion. The growing emphasis on audits led by specific information available on various databases, not only on the GST portal, has led to a significant increase in compliance across sectors and states. This is also reflected in the upsurge in the GST collections across key manufacturing and consuming states.”