The Centres personal income-tax collections in February stood at Rs 5,920 crore, substantially lower than the Rs 8,762 crore collected in the same month in the previous year.

Corporate tax

However, corporate tax collections in February stood higher at Rs 5,578 crore, higher than the collection level of Rs 5,390 crore for the same month last year.

According to the data made available by the Principal Chief Controller of Accounts, which was released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes today, the Centres net direct tax collections during April-February 2009 stood at Rs 2,58,902 crore (Rs 2,32,676 crore). This represented an increase of 11.27 per cent.

Revised target

Official sources said that the tax department would be able to achieve the revised estimate target of Rs 3,45,000 crore despite the current collection trends.

This optimism stems from the fact that there is a final advance tax instalment of March 15, which usually brings in about Rs 45,000 crore to the revenue kitty, besides the end March tax deduction at source (TDS) payments that could be about Rs 30,000 crore.

Some of the industries are also showing signs of revival in the recent months, which is of some comfort for the taxman.

After initially pegging the budget estimate for direct tax collections in 2008-09 at Rs 3,65,000 crore and then increasing its internal collection target during the year to Rs 3,95,000 crore, the Centre had recently placed the revised estimate at Rs 3,45,000 crore.

At the current collection level, the direct taxes have so far reached 70.93 per cent of the budget estimate target of Rs 3,65,000 crore and 76.37 per cent of the revised estimate target of Rs 3,45,000 crore.

TDS

If one were to analyse tax deducted at source (TDS) contribution to total collections, the corporate TDS stood at Rs 55,043 crore, recording an increase of 38.3 per cent over Rs 39,805 crore collected through the same route last year.

On the other hand, TDS on personal income-tax stood at Rs 59,533 crore during April-February 2009, representing an 18.6 per cent growth over Rs 50,217 crore collected during April-February 2008.