The goods and services tax (GST) collection rose about 25 percent in November to Rs 1.31 trillion budget projections for 2021-22. The highest collection was recorded in April of this year at 1.40 trillion rupees.

Even if e-waybills were generated in October at a record high of 73.5 million, the collection in November lagged behind the April figures. Transactions in one month lead to GST survey the following month. In March, 71.2 million e-way invoices were generated. The Treasury Department said the April numbers were linked to year-end earnings. As such, there is a bump in the April collections.

The GST collection passed the 1.3 trillion rupee mark for the second consecutive month in November. This is in line with the trend of economic recovery, said the ministry in a statement.

GST revenue last month was also 27 percent higher than the corresponding pre-Covid month of 2019-20 and 1.1 percent higher than the 1.30 trillion rupees raised this October.

“It (the November collection) was also higher than last month’s collection, which also included the impact of quarterly returns,” the ministry said.

The official data released on Tuesday showed that the economy grew 8.4 percent in the second quarter of the current fiscal year. It also outperformed the corresponding pre-Covid period of 2019-20 by 0.3 percent. In the previous quarter, economic growth had declined by 9.2 percent compared to the pre-Covid period, although it increased by 20.1 percent year-on-year.

Up to November 21st, 39.4 million e-way invoices had been generated, which could have a negative impact on the collection in December.

“Collections may decline in December 2021, as suggested by the slowdown in the daily average creation of e-waybills in the first three weeks of November. Still, we expect the CGST collection to rise to Rs. 5.8 trillion in FY2022, exceeding the BE of FY22 by Rs. 50,000 billion, ”said ICRA Chief Economist Aditi Nayar.

MS Mani, partner at Deloitte India, said GST collections have stabilized at levels that would help meet GST sales targets for FY22.

Of the total GST collection, the central GST was Rs 23,978 crore, State GST was Rs 31,127 crore, integrated GST was Rs 66,815 crore, and Cessing was Rs 9,606 crore. IGST included Rs 32,165 billion from imports of goods and cess included Rs 653 billion from inbound shipments.

During the month, revenue from imports of goods rose 43 percent, while revenue from domestic transactions (including imports of services) increased 20 percent year over year.

The government has paid Rs 27,273 billion to CGST and Rs 22,655 billion to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenues of the center and the states according to the regular accounts in November amounted to 51,251 billion rupees for the CGST and 53,782 billion rupees for the SGST. The center also released 17,000 billion rupees to states and union territories for GST compensation on Nov. 3.

Among the major industrialized nations, Karnataka saw the GST survey increase 31 percent year over year in November, followed by Gujarat at 26 percent and Maharashtra at 24 percent.

The ministry said the recent trend towards high GST revenues is the result of various political and administrative measures the government has taken in the past to improve compliance. “Central tax authorities, together with government agencies, have uncovered large tax evasion cases, mainly related to fake invoices taxpayers,” it said.