West Bengal’s revenue collection under SGST rises over 14% in July

The West Bengal government’s revenue collection under SGST for July has grown by more than 14 per cent, over the same period last year.

As on August 30, the State mopped up ₹1,112 crore under the SGST and ₹747 crore under the CGST.

According to a senior CGST official, the State’s total collection for July stands at ₹2,997 crore, three per cent of the national total of ₹92,283 crore.

The IGST collection was ₹858 crore. The IGST will be shared between the Centre and the States where West Bengal has supplied goods or services.

Likewise, the state will also get its share of IGST for imports from other States as well as from overseas. Hence, the net collection is likely to exceed ₹2,997 crore.

“The revenues have grown by nearly 14 per cent under the GST regime for the month of July this year, vis-à-vis same period last year, when the VAT regime was in place,” a senior state GST official told BusinessLine .

The SGST collection exceeding target also means that West Bengal is unlikely to receive any compensation which the Centre promised to States that may incur a loss in revenue due to GST roll-out.

The Centre would have compensated States on the difference between the actual realisation under GST and the revenue earned under VAT regime, after considering a 14 per cent increase over 2015-16.

It is to be noted that West Bengal, which is otherwise considered to be a laggard in tax collection, topped the list of new registrations (entities which were not earlier registered under VAT, excise and service tax) across the country.

As on August 21, the state reported 1.5 lakh new registrations T10 per cent of the national total of 15 lakh registrations.

In terms of returns filed, Bengal ranked second with nearly 78 per cent of the total 2.89 lakh assesses filing returns. Punjab, incidentally, saw 84 per cent of total assesses filing returns.

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