Indian state-run firms Oil and Natural Gas Corp, State Bank of India and Steel Authority of India were the highest advance taxpayers for the September quarter, a finance ministry official told on Thursday. Last week, the finance ministry said India's direct tax receipts topped one trillion rupees in the first half of the 2007/08 fiscal year, driven by a 32 percent rise in advance tax payments, which reflect corporate profit growth.
According to finance ministry data, ONGC paid 24.01 billion rupees in advance tax for the July-September period, 17 percent higher from the same quarter last year, an official, who could not be named, said. State-run oil firm Indian Oil paid 4.47 billion rupees, GAIL paid 2.81 billion rupees and Bharat Petroleum Corp 1.09 billion rupees.
Reliance Industries paid 6.49 billion rupees for the September quarter, up 46 percent from a year earlier.
India's largest lender, state-run SBI , paid 10.54 billion rupees advance tax in the second quarter, 22 percent higher from a year earlier.
Among SBI's rivals, ICICI Bank paid 4.5 billion rupees, Punjab National Bank 3 billion rupees and HDFC Bank paid 2.75 billion rupees.
India's largest insurer Life Insurance Corp paid 7.31 billion rupees in September, 14 percent higher than a year ago.
Leading steel maker SAIL paid 20 percent higher tax of 9 billion rupees during the September quarter, while its rival Tata Steel paid 4.45 billion rupees.
State-run power producer NTPC's advance tax payment during the September quarter was 17 percent higher from a year earlier at 5.26 billion rupees, while engineering firm BHEL's payment was up 34 percent at 4.7 billion rupees.
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