Cbdt Hopeful Of Better Tax Mop-Up In Sept

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is pinning its hopes on September tax collections for improvement in the sluggish tax mop-up witnessed in the current financial year. According to senior revenue department officials, direct tax collection is set to pick up in September as advance tax instalments are due in the month.

The corporate assessees will submit their second instalment of advance tax by September 15, which constitutes 30 per cent of the total tax liability in a year. In case of the personal income taxpayers, they will also pay 30 per cent their tax liability for the year as first instalment of advance tax by September 15.

Revenue secretary S Narayan himself is monitoring the tax collections and CBDT is certain of a reversal in the trends witnessed in the first five months of 2001-02 in September.

Due to around Rs 11,000 crore refunds during April-August this fiscal, they say, direct tax collection has declined by around 18 per cent as compared to the same period last year.

Direct tax collections have declined to about Rs 12,000 crore during the period as against Rs 15,000 crore collected in the same period last year.

Officials feel that the budget changes relating to the direct taxes such as new transfer pricing norms, taxation of perks, and Section 14A will start yielding revenues soon and collections will be better in coming months.

The budget estimate for direct tax collection in the current fiscal is pegged at Rs 84,800 crore, which leaves a target of around Rs 73,000 crore for the period September-March, 2001-02.