The goods and services tax collections have crossed Rs 1 lakh crore for the third consecutive month in May at Rs 1,00,289 crore.

However, the collections were lower than Rs 1,13,865 crore collected in April, when it hit an all-time high. The GST collection in March was Rs 1,06,577 crore.

The collections were 6.67 per cent higher than Rs 94,016 crore collected in May a year ago, the government said.

M.S. Mani, partner at Deloitte, said, “While the stability in the GST collection above Rs 1 lakh crore per month during the past three months is good, the collections will need to be much more in order to achieve the revenue targets. The next GST Council meeting would probably consider measures to further improve the collections.”

The revenue in May this year is 2.21 per cent higher than the monthly average of Rs 98,114 crore in 2018-19, an official statement said.

The total number of GSTR 3B returns filed in April till May 31, 2019, is 72.45 lakh, the ministry added.

Abhishekh Jain, tax partner at EY, said, “The normal continuing trend of collection above Rs 1 lakh crore signifies the growth story of GST and also the reaping benefits of this new tax era. While the last two months had witnessed higher growth on account of year-end collections, the increase vis-à-vis May 2018 signifies good growth.”

Central GST revenues in May 2019 stood at Rs 17,811 crore, state GST at Rs 24,462 crore and integrated GST at Rs 49,891 crore (including Rs 24,875 crore collected on imports). Cess collection was to the tune of Rs 8,125 crore (including Rs 953 crore collected on imports).

An amount of Rs 18,934 crore has been released to the states as GST compensation for the months of February-March, 2019.

The government has settled Rs 18,098 crore to CGST and Rs 14,438 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenue earned by Central Government and the State Governments after regular settlement in the month of May, 2019 is Rs 35,909 crore for CGST and Rs 38,900 crore for the SGST, it added.

The government aims to collect Rs 7.61 trillion in 2019-20, including CGST, IGST, and compensation cess.

“The projected growth in GST collections for 2019-20 is around 20 per cent over 2018-19. Achieving this steep target would call for substantial increase in the tax base by plugging the existing leakages, as room for increase in tax rate seems limited,” Pratik Jain, partner and leader indirect tax, PwC India said.

The GST collections, since its inception, have largely remained below the monthly average of Rs 1 lakh crore. A major reason behind this can be attributed to several rate changes and procedural complications that the GST Council has tried to address over the past one-and-a-half years.

Though teething implementation troubles have mostly been taken care of, the government is still looking to attain stability by removing multiple rate changes, procedural irritants, complex tax-filing system and a five-tier rate structure.