E-way bills signal coming jump in GST collections
India’s GST revenue collections are likely to stage a recovery from July after falling in May and June, official data on E-way bills for the first fortnight of June indicated, highlighting the gradual resumption of economic activity in line with a decline in coronavirus cases and easing of lockdown curbs.
Data from GSTN, the company that processes tax returns, showed that the average e-way bills generated this month until 13 June stood at 1.61 million, 25% more than the daily average reported for May.
It also showed a reversal of the sequential decline seen in April and May after a peak of 2.29 million average daily E-way bills reported in March.
The data on increasing goods transport is encouraging as policymakers are betting on the retreat of the second wave of the pandemic and the easing of mobility restrictions by states for economic recovery and employment generation.
As taxes are paid a month after sales, the uptick in electronic goods transportation permits seen so far in June could translate into improved GST revenue collections in July. This month, however, tax collections are set to moderate sequentially in line with the decline in e-way bill generation in May.
