No GST dues for FY 21 pending: Centre to states

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ The ministry of finance on Wednesday said that it has released Rs 2.78 lakh crore GST compensation to the states for the year 2020-21 and ‘nothing is pending for the year.’  Further, the ministry, in a press release, said that the Centre has released Rs 7.35 lakh crore and compensation of Rs 78,704 crore pending only for the year 2021-22.

“At the time of the introduction of GST, the Constitution amendment provided that the Parliament, by law shall provide compensation to states for a period of five years for loss of revenue due to introduction of GST,” the release stated.

Accordingly, the GST Compensation to States Act was legislated which provides for the release of compensation against 14 per cent year-on-year growth over revenues in 2015-16 from taxes subsumed in GST.  This compensation cess is credited to the compensation fund and as per the Act, all compensation is paid out of the fund.

Presently, cess is levied on items like pan masala, tobacco, coal and cars.  Compensation of about Rs 49,000 crore has been released for 2017-18 from the fund, which increased to Rs 83,000 crore for 2018-19 and further to Rs 1.65 lakh crore in 2019-20.  For these three years, almost Rs 3 lakh crore compensation was released to states.  However, the compensation requirement increased substantially during 2020-21 due to impact of Covid on revenues.