Direct tax mop-up falls short of revised target

Tax collection figures on Wednesday suggests the government would fall short of its revised direct tax collections target for 2009-10 but will certainly score well above the original Budget estimate of Rs 3,70,000 crore.

While collections up to April 6 stood at Rs 3,69,000 crore, the revenue department is expecting another Rs 10,000 crore by the middle of this month — a shortfall of Rs 8,000 crore from the revised target of Rs 3,87,000 crore.

“There will be a spillover of Rs 3,000 crore. About Rs 7,000 crore will come from TDS (tax deducted at source) receipts. So we will be close to Rs 3,79,000 crore,” said a finance ministry official.

At this level, direct tax receipts in 2009-10 would be 12 per cent higher than the previous year, whereas GDP growth is likely to be 10.6 per cent at the current market price and 7.2 per cent at factor cost.

Another official said a clear picture on the direct tax mop-up for 2009-10 was likely in the third week of this month when the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) would get the preliminary figures from centres all over the country, followed by revised numbers in May.

Even if the government manages to collect Rs 3,80,000 crore in direct taxes, it would be substantially lower than the target of Rs 4,00,000 crore set by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee mid-last year.

Direct tax receipts at the end of February stood at Rs 2,78,373 crore. Since then the government has collected Rs 91,000 crore -- higher than Rs 80,000 crore collected in March in the last two years. In 2008-09, the government had collected Rs 3,38,000 crore, which was less than the target of Rs 3,45,000 crore.

The government has set a target of Rs 4,30,000 crore for 2010-11. CBDT chairman S S N Moorthy told Business Standard in a recent interview that the target was “very ambitious” and the government would focus on all tax-yielding areas, international taxation, transfer pricing and TDS to meet the target.