Skip to main content

Sliding GST collections may put pressure on government

By
Sliding GST collections may put pressure on government
ST rate cut and lenient implementation of the tax reform has caused GST collection in December to slip to Rs 80,808 crore, down 14% from August and 3% from NovemberThings don’t augur well for the exchequer, with recent GST rate cuts and a lenient implementation of the goods and services tax causing collections to slide further in December, posing a challenge to the government.
Total GST collection of the central and state governments, including taxes on inter-state supplies and the cess on certain items, added up to Rs80,808 crore in December.This is a 14% drop from the collections in August, the first month of tax collection and return filing under the new indirect tax system that kicked in on 1 July.
Compared with the receipts in November, December’s GST collection was marginally lower by 3%.Lower-than-expected GST collections, along with the extra spending that Parliament approved earlier this month involving a net cash outgo of Rs33,380 crore, are set to put pressure on the government in its efforts to limit this year’s fiscal deficit to 3.2% of gross domestic product (GST), a target set in February.
In the April-October period, the fiscal deficit scaled 96.1% of the Rs5.4 trillion targeted for the full year, according to data from the Controller General of Accounts.The government has so far managed to raise about three-fourths of the targeted Rs72,000 crore through disinvestment, according to information available from the finance ministry.
Net direct tax receipts, however, grew 14.4% to Rs4.8 trillion in the April-November period from a year ago. Faster economic growth in the latter half of the current fiscal year could give fresh impetus to revenue collection.Experts attributed the decline in GST revenue to several one-off transition issues, which should fade in the coming months.
For example, many of the steps taken by the federal indirect tax body, the GST Council, to address liquidity problems faced by businesses, including liberal tax refund rules, took effect in October. By February, when tax collections for the transactions in January will be available, most of the transition issues would have faded and revenue receipts will stabilize, explained Pratik Jain, leader, indirect tax, PwC India.
On 10 November, the GST Council chaired by finance minister Arun Jaitley slashed tax rates on a large number of daily-use items, including almost 180 items in the highest slab of 28%.The Council also changed rules to make compliance easier for businesses.
These reductions alone are expected to result in a revenue loss of about Rs20,000 crore a year, according to Council members who spoke on condition of anonymity.Policy makers believe that once compliance increases and tax receipts pick up, the revenue impact of the tax cuts will only remain an academic issue.
Deloitte India senior director R. Muralidharan attributed the reduction in GST collection to rate cuts that took effect from mid-November.“It would take some time for the volumes to go up and make good the loss due to rate reduction,” he said.

The Mint, New Delhi, 27th December 2017

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

By
  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...
Post a Comment
Read more