Budget 2022: GST collections for January 2022 at a record high, states FM Sitharaman

FM Sitharaman named GST as a landmark reform. Having faced huge challenges, the GST infrastructure has transitioned to a fully-IT-driven progressive tax system, ‘One Market One Tax’.

FM Sitharaman named GST as a landmark reform. Having faced huge challenges, the GST infrastructure has transitioned to a fully-IT-driven progressive tax system, ‘One Market One Tax’.  

GST revenue collection numbers for the month of January 2022 were shared by the FM (though not a part of her Budget speech), which stood at Rs 1,40,986 crore, the highest collection since inception, reflecting the rapid economic growth & recovery from the pandemic. GST collection crossed Rs 1.30 lakh crore mark for the 4th time, 15% higher than GST revenues in January 2021 and 25% higher than GST revenues in January 2020.

  “Taxpayers deserve applause who have diligently contributed to fulfilling their responsibilities in improved tax & GST,” stated the FM.  

Moving on to the reforms in Customs Administration, she added, “Faceless customs have done exceptional work against all odds and been an enabler in PLI & ease of doing business.”  

The FM proposed that the Customs Administration of SEZ shall henceforth be fully IT-driven and function on the Customs National Portal with a focus on higher facilitation and with only risk-based checks. This reform shall be implemented by September 30, 2022.   

With a view to boosting the ‘Make In India’ drive, the FM proposed to phase out the concessional rates in capital goods and project imports gradually along with applying a moderate tariff of 7.5 per cent.  

 Further, a few exemptions were also proposed by FM  on inputs, like specialised castings, ball screws, and linear motion guides, to encourage domestic manufacturing of capital goods.  

More than 350 exemption entries are proposed to be gradually phased out. These include exemption on certain agricultural products, chemicals, fabrics, medical devices as well as drugs & medicines for which, sufficient domestic capacity exists.