New Delhi: Revenue collection under the Good and Services Tax (GST) regime have crossed Rs 1 lakh crore (1 trillion) mark in October and are further expected to rise in the months to come. The total GST revenue collected in October (for September) stood at Rs 1,00,710 crore. In September, the revenue collection stood at Rs 94,442 crore and the hike in October’s collection was buoyed by an increase in consumption demand in the festive season and implementation of new anti-tax evasion measures. “GST Revenue collection for October 2018 crossed Rupees One Lac Crore & stood at Rs.100,710 crore of which CGST is Rs.16,464 crore, SGST is Rs.22,826 crore, IGST is Rs.53,419 crore (including Rs.26,908 crore from imports) & Cess is Rs. 8,000 crore (including Rs.955 crore from imports),” the Ministry of Finance said in its statement.

“Government has settled Rs. 17,490 crore to CGST and Rs. 15,107 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. Further, Rs 30,000 crore has been settled from the balance IGST available with the Centre on provisional basis in the ratio of 50:50 between Centre and States,” the statement added.

The total revenue earned by both Central Government and the State Governments after regular and provisional settlement in the month of October, 2018 was Rs 48,954 crore for CGST and Rs 52,934crore for the SGST. The states which achieved extra- ordinary growth in total taxes collected from the state assesses include Kerala – 44 per cent, Jharkhand – 20 per cent, Rajasthan – 14 per cent, Uttarakhand – 13 per cent and Maharashtra – 11 per cent.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley attributed the rise in the tax mop-up in October to lower tax rates and higher compliance."GST collections for October 2018 have crossed Rs 1 lakh crore. The success of GST is lower rates, lesser evasion, higher compliance, only one tax and negligible interference by taxation authorities,” Jaitley tweeted.

This splurge in revenue collection will further provide a respite to the government which is running behind on meeting its fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of gross domestic product. However, it will challenging for the government to maintain the upward trend in GST revenue collection in the second half of the fiscal as this is only how it can make up for the shortcoming of the first half collections.