India expects to meet its downwardly revised direct tax collection target of 3.45 trillion rupees ($67 billion) for the 2008/09 fiscal year ending on March 31, a finance ministry official said on Tuesday.
"We are confident of meeting the target for 2008/09," the official, who declined to be named, told reporters.
In last month's interim budget for 2009/10, the finance ministry had revised down its forecast for direct tax receipts in 2008/09 to 3.45 trillion from 3.65 trillion, reflecting a slowdown in the economy.
The official said direct tax receipts between April 1, 2008, and March 16 rose 18 percent from a year ago to 2.96 trillion rupees, including advance taxes paid by the corporates for the fiscal fourth quarter.
The government has forecast the fiscal deficit at 6 percent of gross domestic product, much higher than an initial forecast of 2.5 percent, as growth slows to around 7 percent in 2008/09 from 9 percent a year earlier.
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