Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections during financial year 2017-2018 stood at ₹ 7.19 lakh crore. This collection includes the August 2017 to March 2018 period and ₹ 1.19 lakh crore of Central GST, ₹ 1.72 lakh crore of State GST and ₹ 3.66 lakh crore of Integrated GST.

The IGST collections include ₹ 1.73 lakh crore tax on imports and ₹ 62,021 crore of cess. A Finance Ministry statement said, “For this eight months, the average monthly collection has been ₹ 89,885 crore.”

The SGST collection during the year, including the settlement of IGST has been ₹ 2.91 lakh crore and the total compensation released to the States for the period was ₹ 41,147 crore. The compensation is to ensure that the revenue of the states is protected at the level of 14 per cent over the base year tax collection in 2015-2016. “The revenue gap of each State is coming down over last eight months. The average revenue gap of all states for last year is around 17 per cent,” the statement added.

The Finance Ministry also noted that there has been 'a progressive improvement' in the compliance level observed during the course of the year. In July 2017, 57.69 per cent of the GST returns were filed by the due date. This has improved to 66.81 per cent by December 2017 but dipped to 62.63 per cent in March 2018. The cumulative compliance levels (percentage of returns filed till date) for initial months has crossed 90 per cent and for July 2018, has reached 96 per cent.

“There are State-wise variations in the compliance level observed till due date. However, including delayed filings, the State-wise compliance levels converge over a period of time,” the Finance Ministry statement added.

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