The GST collection in the month of September, 2019 has been the lowest in 19 months. The collection in the month of September is based on the economic activity in the month of August. In this backdrop, let us analyze the GST collection data.
The monthly GST collection in 2019 has been higher than that of 2018 in all months till August, 2019. September, 2019 saw a decline in the GST collection figure with respect to the same month previous year.
The growth rate of GST collections with respect to same month previous year has witnessed a steady decline all through 2019 apart from the months of March and July. So while the GST collection month on month has been higher than the same month previous year for most of the months , the growth rate has been declining steadily.
While there has been an increase in monthly GST collection in 2019 with respect to the same month previous year, the story is not the same when we compare the growth rate with previous month. We compare the growth rate with respect to previous month for 2019 with that of 2018.
The consistent picture is that for months where there is a negative growth, the severity of decline is more in 2019 in comparison to 2018. Similarly, whenever there is a positive growth, the growth has been less in 2019 in comparison to 2018 with the only exception being the months of March and July. Then there are the months of June and September, where there has been a positive growth in 2018, but in 2019 there has been a negative growth in comparison to the previous month.
So in conclusion while there has been increase in GST collections, the trends in growth rates indicate some concern. With the festive months starting from September, IPD hopes that this trends reverses from October GST collection data.
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