GST Council decided to defer the rate hike on textiles that were to be implemented from 1st January 2022
The 46th GST Council was held on 31stDecember 2021 at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi. It was chaired by the Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitaraman. The meeting was also attended by the Union Ministers of State for Finance Shri Pankaj Chowdhary and Dr. Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, besides the finance ministers of the States and UTs and other senior officers of tax administration.This meeting was called under the emergency provisions with just two days notice to exclusively discuss the GST hike on textiles. The State of Gujarat requestedto reconsider the 45th GST Council decision to correct inversion in the tax structure of the textiles sector which prompted the 46th GST Council to keep the GST hike on textiles from 5% to 12% on hold that were to take effect from 1st January 2022.Also, the Council informed the Group of Ministers to include the GST rate on textiles in their study and submit the report by February 2022. The Finance Minister clarified that the GST hike on footwear was not on the Council’s agenda and it was not up for discussion. Hence, the new GST rate of 12% will apply to footwear from 1st January 2022.
GST Revenue Performance for 3rd Quarter of FY 2021-22
The gross GST collection for the third quarter (October-December) of the current FY was  Rs. 3,91,433 which is 17% higher than the revenue collected in the same period last year FY 2020-21. The average monthly gross GST collection for this third quarter has been Rs. 1.30 lakh crore against the average monthly collection of Rs. 1.10 lakh crore and Rs. 1.15 lakh crore in the first and second quarter, respectively. The gross GST revenue collected in the month of October was Rs. 130127, November was Rs.131526 and December 2021 was Rs. 1,29,780 crore.  This growth and consistency indicates that the economy is recovering gradually from the impact of second and third wave of Covid-19 pandemic. It is also the result of various policy and administrative measures that have been taken in the past to improve compliance. A large number of initiatives undertaken in the last one year, like the enhancement of system capacity, nudging non-filers after last date of filing of returns, auto-population of returns, blocking of e-way bills and passing of input tax credit for non-filers etc has led to consistent improvement in the filing of returns over the last few months.Moreover, the CGST enforcement agencies, along with the State counterparts have detected large tax evasion cases, mainly cases relating to fake invoices, with the help of various IT tools developed by GSTN that use the return, invoice and e-way bill data to find suspicious taxpayers. The improvement in revenue has also been due to various rate rationalization measures undertaken by the Council to correct inverted duty structure.Considering all the above initiatives, it is expected that this positive trend in the revenues will continue in the last quarter as well.
The two charts below show trends in monthly gross GST revenues during the third quarter of FY 2021-22 compared with the same period FY 2020-21:
 

Gross GST Collection for 3rdQuarter 2021-22 (Rs. Cr.)

 Source: Compiled from various PIB Press Releases dated 1.11.2021, 1.12.2021&1.1.2022
 

GST Collection 3rd Quarter 2021-22(in Rs. Cr.)

Source: Compiled from various PIB Press Releases dated 1.11.2021, 1.12.2021&1.1.2022
 

The gross GST revenue collected in the month of December 2021was Rs. 1,29,780 crore of which, CGST was Rs. 22,578 crore, SGST was Rs. 28,658crore, IGST was Rs. 69,155 crore (including Rs. 37,527 crore collected on import of goods) and cess was Rs. 9,389 crore (including Rs. 614 crore collected on import of goods).The government has settled Rs. 25,568 crore to CGST and Rs. 21,102 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenue of Centre and the States in the month of December 2021 after settlement was Rs. 48,146 crore for CGST and Rs. 49,760 crore for the SGST. The revenues for the month of December 2021 are 13% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year and 26% higher than the GST revenues in December 2019. During the month, revenues from import of goods were 36% higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 5% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.The GST collection in the month was close to Rs. 1.30 lakh crore despite reduction of 17% in the number of e-way bills generated in the month of November, 2021 (6.1 crore) as compared to the month of October, 2021 (7.4 crore) due to improved tax compliance and better tax administration by both Central and State Tax authorities.
In November 2021the gross GST collection was Rs. 1,31,526 crore of which CGST was Rs. 23,978 crore, SGST was Rs. 31,127 crore, IGST was Rs. 66,815 crore (including Rs. 32,165 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess is Rs. 9,606 crore (including Rs. 653 crore collected on import of goods). The government has settled Rs. 27,273 crore to CGST and Rs. 22,655 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenue of Centre and the States after regular settlements in the month of November 2021 was Rs. 51251 crore for CGST and Rs. 53,782 crore for the SGST. The revenues for the month of November 2021 are 25% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year and 27% over 2019-20. During the month, revenues from import of goods were 43% higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 20% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.
Rs. 1,30,127 crore was collected in October 2021,of which CGST was Rs. 23,861 crore, SGST was Rs. 30,421 crore, IGST was Rs. 67,361 crore (including Rs. 32,998 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess was Rs. 8,484 crore (including Rs. 699 crore collected on import of goods). The government has settled Rs. 27,310 crore to CGST and Rs. 22,394 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenue of Centre and the States after regular settlements in the month of October 2021 was Rs. 51171 crore for CGST and Rs. 52,815 crore for the SGST. The revenues for the month of October 2021 are 24% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year and 36% over 2019-20. During the month, revenues from import of goods were 39% higher and the revenues from domestic transaction (including import of services) are 19% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year.
State wise GST collected during third quarter of FY 2021-22
The State wise GST collection was Rs.96430 crore in October, Rs.98708 crore in November and Rs. 91639 crore in December 2021. When we look at the revenue performance of the states during this third quarter of 2021-22, total Rs. 286777 crore collected which is 13 % higher than the same period in the last financial year. It is important to note that in this period, the gross GST revenue collection has achieved 17% growth. It is clear from the given table that,almost all States has achieved positive growth except the State of Uttarakhand in this third quarter compared to the same period in last financial year.Around 14 States has achieved 13% or above growth rate. This shows that the States are slowly recovering from the second wave and third wave of Covid-19 pandemic. The State of Odisha shows the highest growth rate of 34%.