The GST (good and services tax) revenue receipts for the State of Punjab during the month of August this year registered a growth of 20.41 percent with collection stood at Rs 1,188.70 crore against Rs 987.20 crore for August 2020 — indicating rapid economic recovery after the second wave of COVID-19.
“The high growth rate is a fair indicator of the rapid economic recovery after the second wave of COVID-19,” said a spokesperson of the Taxation Commissionerate on Sunday adding that the sectoral analysis of the State’s GST receipts suggests a healthy recovery in sectors such as iron and steel, electronic goods, fertilizers, telecom and banking.
Spokesperson said that besides the base effect of the abnormal previous year, the said growth is attributed to strong anti-evasion activity of the Department involving rigorous monitoring of bogus billing and unscrupulous trade practices as well as deployment of advanced data analytics for holistic and effective tax administration.
It is expected that the robust GST growth witnessed so far is likely to continue in the coming months as well, added the spokesperson.
Spokesperson added that in addition to the regular IGST settlement, Punjab has received an ad-hoc settlement to the tune of Rs 448.35 crore in the month of August 2021 for the first quarter of the financial year 2021-22. As a result, the GST revenue up to the month of August 2021 has witnessed a high growth of nearly 80 percent as compared to the corresponding period last year.
“The tax collection from VAT and CST during the month of August 2021 is Rs 648.44 crore and Rs 26.97 crore respectively. As compared to the same period last year, VAT and CST revenue collection have displayed an impressive growth of 24 and 40 percent this year thereby pointing to the upward curve of the economic recovery,” added the spokesperson.
The Punjab State Development Tax collection during August 2021 remained at Rs 11.38 crore with a growth of 9.63 percent over the corresponding period last year.