The government’s gross direct tax collections in the first six months of the current financial year rose 16.7 per cent over a year earlier to Rs 5.47 trillion, showed provisional figures released by the finance ministry on Thursday.
The jump seen in the numbers is substantial, especially as corresponding figures in the April-September period of 2017 had also included Rs 102.54 billion as extraordinary collections under the Income Declaration Scheme (IDS), 2016.
Also, at Rs 1.03 trillion, refunds issued between April and September 2018 were 30.4 per cent higher than those in the same period last year. The collections during

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