GST collection slides below Rs 94,000 crore
New Delhi, Sep 1 : Revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) dropped to Rs 93,960 crore in August as against Rs 96,483 crore collected in July.
The government said a major factor for the dip in tax revenues could be "probable postponement" of sale of items on which tax rate was reduced by the GST Council in its July 21 meeting. The reduced rates were to come into effect from July 27.
"Since it would have taken some time for the market to pass on the benefit of reduced taxes, consumers might have postponed their decision to buy, expecting the benefit. The actual impact of reduction of rate of taxes would be observed only from next month onwards as the rate reduction would have got affected only in last few days of the month," the Finance Ministry said.
It added that even past trends show that August collections are lower than the July collections.
"Even past trend of indirect tax collection shows that while July collections are 8.2 per cent of the total annual collections, August collections are at a lower level of 7.7 per cent of the total annual collections. This is another reason for lower collections during the month of August as compared to that in July," it said.
As per the data released by the Ministry, the total gross GST revenue collected in the month of August (for the month of July) stood at Rs 93,960 crore, of which Central GST was Rs 15,303 crore, State GST Rs 21,154 crore and Integrated GST was Rs 49,876 crore. An additional Rs 7,628 crore was collected as cess.
The total number of GST returns filed for the month of July up to August stood at 67 lakh, slightly higher than 66 lakh returns filed in July (for June).
The last date of filing return of July has been extended till October for Kerala.
"The total revenue earned by the Central and state governments after settlement including provisional settlement of Rs 12,000 crore in August is Rs 36,963 crore for Central GST and Rs 41,136 crore for State GST. For the bi-monthly period June-July, compensation of Rs 14,930 crore has been released to the states," an official statement said.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
