How have the GST tax collections been for the month of February 2021?

There is no gainsaying the fact that the collections of goods and services tax or GST has been on the increase over the last few months. Th trend has sustained in February 2020 also with GST collections for February 2020 continuing to be robust at a level of Rs.119,875 crore. This marks the fifth consecutive month of GST revenues clocking over Rs.1 trillion

The GST collections were up 7% on a yoy basis over Feb-20. However, the collections were marginally lower than the Jan-21 collections. However, the January collections normally have a lag component to it and hence it may not be entirely comparable on a one-to-one basis. But the theme appears to be that GST collections have turned robust with output.

The trend of the break-up of the GST collections were approximately the same as the previous months. Out of the total GST collections of Rs.119,875 crore in February 2020, Rs.21,092 crore was by way of CGST, Rs.27,273 crore was by way of SGST, Rs.55,253 crore as IGST and Rs.9,525 crore as cess. While CGST pertains to central collections and SGST to state collections, the IGST refers to the inter-state trade collections.

For the month of February 2021, revenues from merchandise imports were 15% higher while revenues from domestic transaction were 5% higher. However, all these back-ended collections may not really make any substantive difference to the 9.5% fiscal deficit for the financial year FY21.