NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian government’s monthly goods and services tax (GST) collection rose 12% year-on-year to a record high in April of 1.87 trillion Indian rupees ($22.88 billion), a government statement said on Monday.
The government collected 1.60 trillion rupees of GST in March, and 1.68 trillion in April 2022.
Efforts to control tax evasion and economic recovery post the Covid-19 pandemic helped to boost GST collection in April. GST is collected with a lag of one month, and the tax mopped up in April represents the economic activity in March.
A normalising base along with cooling inflation may moderate the pace of tax growth slightly in the coming quarter, said Aditi Nayar, economist at ICRA.
The growth in tax collections comes after the Indian economy registered nominal growth of 10.5% in 2022/23.
In the financial year ended March 31, the government collected 18.10 trillion of GST on gross basis, which was about 22% higher year-on-year.
(Reporting by Nikunj Ohri, Editing by Louise Heavens and Sharon Singleton)