The government's tax collection soared to Rs 4,70,077 crore, exceeding the revised revenue estimates for 2006-07 by about Rs 5,000 crore, thanks to high economic growth and partial revamping of tax administration.

"For the first time in recent years, the actual tax collections have exceeded both budgeted estimates and revised estimates," Finance Minister P Chidambaram said while releasing tax collection figures on Saturday.

 
He said as against Rs 2,29,533 crore budgeted estimates for indirect collections, and revised estimates of Rs 2,36,202 crore, the actual collections including customs, Central excise and service taxes reached Rs 2,40,896 crore in 2006-07.

Personal income tax collections touched Rs 85,620 crore and corporate tax Rs 1,43,561 crore for the same period.

Likewise, the Finance Minister said the actual direct tax collections turned out be to Rs 2,29,181 crore as against the revised estimate of Rs 2,29,007 crore.

Customs tax collections of Rs 86,294 crore also exceeded both budgeted as well as revised estimates of Rs 77,066 crore and Rs 81,800 crore respectively.

Revised estimates of Central excise collections, which were lowered from Rs 1,17,967 crore to Rs 1,16,233 crore, were also surpassed as figures touched Rs 1,17,250 crore for 2006-07.

Service tax collections of Rs 37,352 crore were, however, lower by Rs 817 crore as against the revised estimates of Rs 38,169 crore for the fiscal.

As per budget estimates, government has projected to collect Rs 5,48,122 crore as revenue in 2007-08.