Direct tax revenues up by 42.50%

It's definitely a good year for the Revenue Department, with the government's advance tax collections grew by 38% in April-December 18, 2006. The total net direct tax collections upto December 18, 2006 stood at Rs. 1,33,461 Crores, up by 42.50% over the corresponding period of the last year. the budgetary estimate on direct tax front is Rs. 2,10,419 Crores, i.e. already 63.43% of the budgeted target is achieved. The corporate advance tax collections stood at Rs. 59,393 Crore, in April-December 18, 2006, up by 38.51% over the corresponding period of the last year. Usually, the advance tax collections in March, 2006 is more than the double of the cumulative advance tax collections during the period of Aril-December of the Financial Year.

On this basis, I , with 9 years of work experience in the Income Tax Department, estimate around Rs. 1,00,000 Crores to Rs. 1,20,000 Crores as net direct tax collections from Decemeber 19, 2006 to March 31, 2006, making the estimated total net collections for this fiscal between Rs. 2,33,000 Crores to Rs. 2,53,000 Crores, against budget target of Rs. 2,10,419 Crores. This is possible because the industry is doing well, service sector is expanding, resulting in overall growth of net profits of comapnies and surplus incomes of individuals. Moreover, recent introduction of Annual Information Return (AIR), wherein various public and private authoriities like mutual funds, registration authorities, banks have to submit the details of high value transactions, made people aware that the Department is watching them and acting upon the information received through AIR. Due to these measures, the growth in the personal income tax is on par with that of the corporate tax i.e. tax paid by the companies.

The following is the list of Top-10 advance tax payers in India

Company Apr-Dec 18, '06 April-Dec, '05

(In Rs. Crores) (In Rs. Crores)

ONGC 5192 4818

SAIL 2351 1258

SBI 2084 1092

LIC 1527 1387

TISCO 1410 1293

NTPC 1348 840

RIL 1102 628

BSNL 1050 530

ICICI 900 665

Bharti 692 373