The Hindu Business Line : Robust growth boosts net direct tax mop-up

Improved tax administration and a robust economic growth have started showing results. Continuing with its buoyant growth, the Centre’s net direct tax collections grew 44.39 per cent since the beginning of the current fiscal till August 15 to Rs 59,210 crore, significantly higher than Rs 41,006 crore recorded during the same period of the previous year.

Official sources confirmed that the growth rate of the direct tax collections has been above 40 per cent so far this fiscal (on a year-on-basis). In fiscal 2006-07, net direct tax collections grew by about 39 per cent, the best performance over the last two decades.

The Finance Ministry attributed the continued buoyancy in direct tax collections to robust growth in the economy, better tax compliance and improved tax administration.

For the financial year 2004-05, the AIR (annual information return) submitted related to 19.32 lakh transactions involving an amount of Rs 14.06 lakh crore. For 2005-06, the tax department has 20.52-lakh transactions under the AIR net involving an amount of Rs 16.47 lakh crore.

Strong Growth

Besides the AIR system, the other factor that has led to buoyancy was the strong growth in collections through Tax Deduction at Source, which has grown by over 40 per cent for the period under review.

With corporate India recording hefty growth in profits, salaries have shot up and this has led to higher TDS, said a CBDT official.

While corporate tax collections for the period under review increased by 52.25 per cent to Rs 33,164 crore (Rs 21,783 crore), personal income tax (including FBT, STT and BCTT) grew by 35.57 per cent to Rs 25,989 crore from a level of Rs 19,170 crore in April-August 15 last year.

An official release said here that the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) collections grew 36.30 per cent to Rs 2,495 crore.

The Banking Cash Transaction Tax (BCTT) ws up by 29.71 per cent to Rs 207 crore.

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