Income Tax department revises target by Rs 30,000 crore
 
With the overall buoyancy in the economy, the Income Tax department is expected to surpass its annual direct tax collection target by over Rs 25,000 crore. The booming economy has led to higher incomes for individuals as well as companies. With the robust tax collections during the current fiscal, the Centre has revised the target for direct tax collection by around Rs 25,000-30,000 crore, said a senior tax official.

The revised target would be over Rs 2.10 lakh earlier budgeted for by the finance minister. Overall, the department was expecting to cross the annual tax collection target by at least Rs 20,000 crore.
 
This apart, an additional revenue of Rs 2,000 crore by way of high dividends from public sector companies, banks and insurance companies, would add to the government exchequer.

Interestingly, Mumbai is also not exception to a record tax collection. As per the revised estimates, the new tax collection in Mumbai has also increased by Rs 10,000 crore. The official noted that the Mumbai unit has recorded gross collections of Rs 58,964 crore till January 15 and may collect atleast Rs 75,000 crore as against the earlier budgeted target of Rs 69,584 crore.

The official informed that a few years ago, Mumbais tax collections targets were reduced due to drop in the revenue from the oil sector.

The all-India net direct tax collection as on January 31, grew about 41% at Rs 1,56,429 crore, surpassing the targeted growth of 27.5% as per budget estimates. In Mumbai, the net direct tax collections so far is Rs 48,312 crore including corporate tax of Rs 31,143 crore, income tax Rs 12,723 crore, securities transaction tax (STT) Rs 3,289 crore, Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) Rs 967 crore and Banking Cash Transaction Tax (BCTT) Rs 190 crore.

Moreover, the incidence of surveys carried out by the investigation wing of the department would add to the exchequer. The surveys are set to put additional pressure on taxpayers to deposit the amount of tax deducted at source (TDS) with the department. TDS collections are usually added to the exchequer during the last three months of the fiscal.

Another official said that till January 31, the Mumbai investigation wing has unearthed Rs 575 crore of undisclosed income from 55 entities including builders, diamond merchants, gold traders, stock investors, pharma and steel companies.