NEW DELHI, Dec 17: The finance ministry announced on Sunday that the number of taxpayers who filed GST returns increased by approximately 65% to 1.13 crore in the five years leading up to April 2023, as compliance increased. Additionally, there are now 1.40 crore active taxpayers registered under GST, up from 1.06 crore in April 2018. Ninety percent of eligible taxpayers file GSTR-3B returns by the end of the filing month in the current fiscal year, according to data shared by the ministry. This is an increase from sixty-eight percent in the first year of the GST rollout, 2017–18. “A higher percentage of eligible taxpayers are filing returns as a result of the GST’s streamlined rules and procedures,” the ministry stated in a post on X.On July 1, 2017, a national Goods and Services Tax (GST) went into effect. It included more than a dozen local taxes, including VAT, service tax, and excise. As of April 2023, there were 1.13 crore GSTR-3B filers, up from 72.49 lakh in April 2018. The monthly return form for outgoing supply details and tax payment is GSTR-3B. The ministry stated in another post on X that “the compliance level in GST return filing has improved over the years with effective policy and systemic changes in GST.”The ministry further stated that an increase in return filing over time shows an improvement in the degree of compliance. In November, the monthly GST collection total was Rs 1.68 lakh crore. In the current fiscal year, gross GST collection has surpassed Rs 1.60 lakh crore for the sixth time. Since its implementation on July 1, 2017, the Goods and Services Tax collection has been increasing annually. According to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the average gross monthly mop-up for the current fiscal year is Rs 1.66 lakh crore. She made this statement earlier this month in the Lok Sabha. In April, the collection reached a record-breaking Rs 1.87 lakh crore.
