Over one cr businesses already registered under GST: Jaitley

New Delhi, Oct 24 (IANS)   Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said that the number of trade registrations under GST has seen an increase of 30-35 per cent in the first three months, and that the total assessee base has already crossed one crore, which is an "encouraging" indicator.

"Till now the trade registrations for Goods and Services Tax (GST) is very encouraging; 72 lakh traders have moved from the old system (previous indirect tax regime); 28 lakh people are new registrants. Total assesses have reached above one core," Jaitley told reporters here at a press briefing.

"In the first three months, there has been a 30-35 per cent increase in registrations, which is a good indicator," he said.

The Finance Minister added that currently the transition phase was on as the goods still being sold were manufactured during the earlier indirect tax regime.

"In initial months, the goods sold were manufactured in the old system. The transition phase is going on. The goods with new packaging will come into the system. We have reached about Rs 93,000-94,000 crore worth of monthly trading collections including IGST," he said.

According to the September collection figures under GST, Rs 92,150 crore was collected from 42.91 lakh businesses up to October 23.

Over Rs 95,000 crore was collected through GST during July, the first month of its implementation, while the figure for August was over Rs 91,000 crore.

For August, only 55 per cent of businesses had filed returns till September 25.

Every month the businesses filing returns is seeing an increase, he added.