4 years of GST regime | Tax base has doubled, says Nirmala Sitharaman

Union Finance Minister thanks taxpayers on the fourth anniversary of Goods and Services Tax

With the Goods and Services Tax system completing four years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said most challenges in providing stability to the tax regime have been overcome, including the two waves of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. “In the last four years, our tax base has almost doubled from 66.25 lakh to 1.28 crore. For eight in a row, GST revenues have cross Rs 1 lakh crore and we have seen record collection of Rs 1.41 lakh crore in April,” the minister said in a written message. “The enhanced revenue collection in recent months should be the ‘new normal’, she said. “Would like to thank and congratulate the people of India, especially the tax payers, whose unstinted support and faith in our government have made GST a reality. Its positive externalities such as a unified market, removal of cascading and improved competitiveness of goods and services has helped spur economic growth taking us further on the path of prosperity,” the minister said. “Any reform of this scale, in a large and diverse country such as ours, can only be highly challenging. The GST Council has shown immense sagacity and wisdom in redressing legitimate concerns of taxpayers and citizens by course correction whenever needed. This has manifested itself not just in measures to ease the compliance burden on taxpayers, but especially MSMEs, but also reducing the tax burden on the common man,” Ms Sitharaman noted.