Riding on the back of corporate and personal income tax collections, the government looks all set to exceed the direct tax mop-up target for the current fiscal.

Direct tax mop-up was up by 38.3% to Rs 91,374 crore in the first seven months of the fiscal as against the targeted growth of 27.7%.

With such buoyancy, we should exceed the budgetary target, Central Board of Direct Taxes spokesperson AK Sinha said on Wednesday. The target for 06-07 for direct taxes has been set at Rs 2,10,000 crore. Growing at this pace, the direct tax collections could cross Rs 2,25,000 crore. In 05-06, the direct tax figure touched Rs 1,64,500 crore.

Mr Sinha attributed the strong growth in direct tax collections to high GDP growth and various initiatives like annual information return (AIR) undertaken by the department. He said AIR, from which the department gets data on high-value transactions in properties, credit cards, bonds and mutual funds, had led to improvement in tax compliance.

The corporate tax collections saw a surge of over 45% at Rs 55,549 crore till October 28, as against Rs 38,199 crore in April-October 05. Personal income tax and fringe benefit tax kitty swelled by 25% to Rs 32,886 crore in the period under review compared with Rs 26,281 crore during the corresponding period in 05-06.

Banking cash transaction tax (BCTT) collections climbed to Rs 269.50 crore in April-October, 06, from Rs 119.50 crore in the year-ago period. The government also had it good on account of buoyancy in the stock markets which saw the benchmark Sensex zooming past 13,000 on Monday. Its securities transaction tax (STT) mop-up jumped 96% to Rs 2,939 crore in Apr-Oct, 06, as against Rs 1,589 crore collected in the same period last fiscal.

On the e-filing, Mr Sinha said there was adequate broadband available and companies should not have any difficulty in filing e-returns. He said 36,262 returns had been filed as on Wednesday. Last fiscal, as many as 3.76 lakh corporate returns were filed. The last date for e-filing has been extended by a month from October 31 to November 30.