Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday released the country's maiden GST revenue data that surpassed government's internal expectation of Rs 91,000 crore revenue and recorded tax collection of Rs 92,283 crore from just 64.42 per cent of the total taxpayer base. This tax collections are for July and the numbers are likely to go up when all the tax payers file returns.
The government's highest planning body Niti Aayog recently said that due to an efficient tax system post-GST, tax revenue is expected to grow (in a baseline scenario) to Rs 26.48 lakh crore by 2019-20 from Rs 17.03 lakh crore in 2016-17. It predicts a 14 per cent growth in 2017-18, followed by 16 per cent and 17 per cent in the next two financial years. It further predicts the indirect tax buoyancy to grow from 1.06 per cent in 2017-18 to 1.11 per cent in 2018-19 and 1.17 per cent in 2019-20.
Niti Aayog's the three-year action agenda expects the gross tax revenues to GDP ratio to increase to 12.3 per cent by 2019-20, compared to 11.2 per cent in 2016-17. The forecast of direct tax to GDP ratio is 5.8 per cent, 6.0 per cent and 6.3 per cent in 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20 respectively. The indirect tax to GDP ratio is likely to rise to 5.7 per cent, 5.8 per cent and 5.9 per cent in 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20, respectively, compared to in 2016-17 is 5.6 per cent.