New Delhi, Apr 27 (IANS): Total revenue collected under Goods and Services Tax (GST) for eight months upto March this year has been Rs 7.19 lakh crore with an average monthly collection of Rs 89,885 crore during the period.

"Including the collection of July 2017, the total GST collection during the financial year 2017-18 stands provisionally at Rs. 7.41 lakh crore," an official statement said here on Friday.

This indirect tax regime was rolled out on July 1, 2017.

Of the total revenue collection, Central GST was Rs 1.19 lakh crore, State GST was Rs 1.72 lakh crore, Integrated GST was Rs. 3.66 lakh crore (including Rs. 1.73 lakh crore on imports) and cess was Rs. 62,021 crore (including Rs. 5702 crore on imports).

While the tax on domestic supplies in a month is collected through the process of returns and gets collected in the next month, IGST and cess on imports gets collected in the same month. Therefore, during the current year, GST on domestic supplies has been collected only in eight months from August 2017 to March 2018, IGST and cess on imports has been collected for nine months, from July 2017 to March 2018, the statement explained.

The SGST collection during the year, including the settlement of IGST has been Rs 2.91 lakh crore and the total compensation released to the states for a period of eight months during the last financial year was Rs 41,147 crore to ensure that the revenue of the states is protected at the level of 14 per cent over the base year tax collection in 2015-16.

The finance ministry statement said the revenue gap of each state is coming down over last eight months. The average revenue gap of all states for last year is around 17 per cent.

It said there has been a progressive improvement in the compliance level observed during the course of the year.

The compliance level as on the due date has steadily increased and, by the end of the financial year, has reached to an average of 65 per cent from around 55-57 per cent observed during initial months. The cumulative compliance levels (percentage of returns filed till date) for initial months has crossed 90 per cent and for July, 2018, has reached 96 per cent.

The statement said state-wise variations in the compliance level were observed till due date. However, including delayed filings, the State-wise compliance levels converge over a period of time.