April-Jan direct tax collections up 20%

Direct tax collections between April and January in the current financial year crossed Rs 3 lakh crore, helped by Rs 18,543 crore mopped up in the month of January alone.

The collections in the first 10 months of 2010-11 grew by 20.37 per cent at Rs 3,17,501 crore, against Rs 2,63,765 crore in the same period a year ago.

The Income Tax Department will have to collect about Rs 1,30,000 crore more in the next two months to meet the revised target of Rs 4,47,000 crore.

Between April and December, the direct tax receipts stood at Rs 2,98,958 crore.

Corporate income tax receipts in the first 10 months of 2010-11 were Rs 2,16,872 crore, up 24.78 per cent from Rs 1,73,799 crore in the corresponding period last year. Personal income tax collections, including securities transaction tax and residual fringe benefit tax/ banking cash transaction tax, grew by 11.87 per cent to Rs 1,00,191 crore, compared with Rs 89,561 crore in the year-ago period.

The finance ministry said direct tax collections are buoyant despite higher tax refunds, which stood at Rs 53,688 crore, against Rs 38,721 crore last year, registering 38.65 per cent growth. The Centralised Processing Centre of the Income Tax Department in Bangalore has also completed processing of all e-filed tax returns for the current assessment year 2010-11.
 

ON A HIGH
Tax collections (Rs cr)	Apr-Jan 2009-10	Apr-Jan 2010-11	Growth (%)
Corporation tax	1,73,799	2,16,872	24.78
Personal income tax	89,561	1,00,191	11.87
Total	2,63,765	3,17,501	20.37

“As such, all taxpayers who have filed e-returns and whose refund claim is below Rs 10 lakh would be issued their income-tax refunds by March 2011,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement.

The statement further said the CBDT chairman had directed all chief commissioners to upload necessary data so that the refunds could be issued expeditiously. It will be for the first time that most income-tax refunds of the current assessment year will be dispatched to the taxpayers within the current financial year itself.

The government had budgeted an overall tax mop-up of Rs 7,46,000 crore in the current financial year, which was revised to Rs 7,82,000 crore last month. The Budget estimate of Rs 4,30,000 crore for direct taxes was increased by Rs 17,000 crore. Direct tax collections are typically below Rs 20,000 crore in a single month except for June, September, December and March when the installment for the quarter is paid.

So, if the revenue department collects about Rs 20,000 crore in January, it will have to collect about Rs 1,10,000 crore in March to meet the revised target. Last year, it mopped up a little over Rs 1,00,000 crore in March, whereas in the previous two years the collections in March were about Rs 80,000 crore.