The Hindu Business Line : `Excise collection may not meet target'

THE Finance Ministry on Thursday expressed confidence that the overall tax collection during 2004-05 fiscal would be on target even though there might be some shortfall on the excise front.

"Things are better now after the scare that we had on the advance tax front in December 2004. We are lagging on the excise front, but hopeful of doing better on the other taxes," Mr D. Swarup, Expenditure Secretary, in the Union Finance Ministry, told reporters here.

Excise duty collections during April-December 2004 stood at Rs 68,425.86 crore, an increase of 7.56 per cent over April-December 2003 collections of Rs 63,616.69 crore.

The 2004-05 Budget target for excise was Rs 1,09,199 crore, which represented an 18.20 per cent increase over the revised estimate of Rs 92,379 crore for 2003-04. However, the growth in excise collections this fiscal has been lower than anticipated.

But the Centre's gross tax collections surged by over 18 per cent to Rs 1,94,231 crore during April-December 2004, up from Rs 1,64,170 crore in the year-ago period.

Indirect tax collections registered a 12.23 per cent increase in the first nine months (April-December 2004) of the current fiscal at Rs 1,17,856.86 crore (Rs 1,05,011.03 crore).

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