Indirect tax collections jump 42% in April

Indirect tax collections jumped 42% in April on sharp rise in excise collections owing to increased duty on petrol and diesel.

"Indirect tax collections for the month of April 2016 was Rs 64,394 crore registering a growth of 41.8% as compared to Rs 45,417 crore collected during the same period previous year," an official statement said.

Excise collections soared 70.7% to Rs 28,252 crore in April as compared to Rs 16,546 crore a year ago.

The government had between November 2015 and January 2016 raised excise duty on petrol and diesel five times to raise an additional Rs 17,000 crore in 2015-16 fiscal. The five excise duty hikes totalled Rs 4.02 a litre on petrol and Rs 6.87 per litre on diesel.

"Overall growth in revenue collections on account of indirect taxes excluding additional revenue measures is 17%," the statement said.

Additional revenue measures include raising of excise duty on auto fuels.

The collections in April are 8.3% of the Budgeted target for the 2016-17 fiscal.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has pegged indirect tax collections at Rs 7.78 lakh crore in 2016-17, up 9.7% from Rs 7,09,022 crore actual collections of the previous fiscal.

Service tax collections in April rose 28% to Rs 18,647 crore as compared to Rs 14,585 crore in the year ago period.

Customs or import duty collections were Rs 17,495 crore, 22.5% higher than Rs 14,286 crore collected in April 2015.