The Hindu Business Line : ‘Meet Budget estimates for indirect taxes’

Snapshot
Performance “slightly behind” on the excise duty front and a “shade behind” on service tax front.
Customs duty collections are ahead of target and recorded a 20 per cent increase, excise duty collections grew 6.8 per cent.
Rupee has not impacted custome revenues in the first quarter.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, July 24 The Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, on Tuesday expressed confidence that the revenue department would meet the budget estimate on indirect taxes for fiscal 2007-08 even as he admitted that the performance so far appeared to be “slightly behind” on the excise duty front and a “shade behind” on service tax collections.

Optimistic

“There are no grave concerns (about meeting the target). I have made it clear to them (chief commissioners and director-generals) that every effort must be taken to achieve the budget estimate targets. I am confident that given the economy growing close to nine per cent, the department will meet the budget estimates,” Mr Chidambaram told reporters after addressing the annual conference of the chief commissioners and director generals of customs and central excise here today.

Performance

For 2007-08, the Centre has pegged the budget estimates for indirect taxes at Rs 2,78,013 crore. Elaborating on the first quarter revenue collection performance, Mr Chidambaram said that customs duty collections are ahead of target and recorded a 20 per cent increase to Rs 23,570 crore in April-June 2007 as compared to Rs 19,677 crore in the same period last year.

While excise duty collections grew 6.8 per cent in April-June 2007 to Rs 25,161 crore (Rs 23,560 crore), service tax collections in the first quarter grew 31.6 per cent to Rs 7,257 crore (Rs 5,514 crore).

Rupee appreciation

The appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar has not had an adverse impact on the customs revenues of the Centre during the first quarter this current fiscal, according to Mr Chidambaram.

Non-oil imports

He said that non-oil imports had gone up substantially (during the first quarter) and also observed that global oil prices had also moved up during this period.

“The volumes of imports have gone up. Non-oil imports have gone up and price of oil has also gone up. The customs revenues had not been affected by rupee appreciation,” Mr Chidambaram said.

Non-oil imports during April-May 2007 stood at $26.55 billion, which is 49.41 per cent increase over the $17.77 billion imports in the same period last year.

Oil imports in April-May 2007 stood at $9.17 billion, slightly higher than $9.07 billion last year.