The governments advance tax collections are estimated to have grown at close to 40% in the April-June quarter. Advance taxes are a good indicator of the corporate India s profitability and healthy collections reflect the bottomline growth. Although these figures are yet to be releasedby the government, officials indicated healthy growth of nearly 40%.
Meanwhile, the direct taxes grew at a rate of 71.28% in April and May this fiscal compared to the same period last year, finance ministry said in a release on Wednesday.
Corporate tax receipts in the April-May period were up by 68% to Rs 8,126 crore, while personal income tax collections grew 73% to Rs 14,690 crore, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in the statement. Personal income tax included data for fringe benefit tax, securities transaction tax and banking cash transaction tax.
Total direct taxes for the two-month period stood at Rs 22,840 crore, up from Rs 13,335 crore in the same period last year.
The robust growth in direct taxes has been achieved despite larger refund payouts at Rs 9014 crore rupees in he first two months of this fiscal as against Rs 5,037 crore in the same period last fiscal, CBDT said.
Last week, finance minister P Chidambaram urged the Board to raise the annual target for direct taxes to Rs 400,000 crore from the budget estimate of Rs 3,65,000 crore.
The government is looking to higher revenue growth to fund the farm debt waiver scheme and to foot a surging subsidy bill for food and oil while adhering to its fiscal deficit targets.
CBDT said that while tax collections witnessed high growth, the cost of collection has declined to an all-time low of 0.54% during 2007-08.
The government has received the first installement of the advance tax for corporate taxpayers by 16 th June.
The trend of growth in advance tax will reflect in the tax collection figures for the month of June 2008, the release said.
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