The Hindu Business Line : Advance tax collections down 22% in Dec 15 instalment

New Delhi, Dec. 26 The Centre’s advance tax collections for the December 15 instalment recorded a 22 per cent decline to Rs 42,600 crore as against Rs 54,900 crore collected in the same third instalment last year, provisional data available with the revenue department showed.

The provisional data clearly shows that the global economic slowdown has impacted the earnings expectations of the Indian corporate sector, resulting in lower advance tax payouts for the December 15 instalment, industry observers said.

A CBDT official noted that this was only a provisional number and that the tax department was yet to finalise the advance tax numbers for the December 15 instalment. “The numbers available are those of OLTAS, which is part of the tax information network,” the official said.

For the period up to December 24 this fiscal, the cumulative direct tax collections stood at about Rs 2,32,000 crore, up 11.5 per cent over the collections of Rs 2,08,000 crore in the same period last year.

Of the aggregate collection amount of about Rs 2,32,000 crore, corporate tax collections stood at about Rs 1,50,000 crore, which is 15.3 per cent higher than the collections in the same period last year.

net direct tax collections

In the first eight months of the current fiscal, net direct tax collections stood at Rs 1,77,251 crore, up 22.2 per cent from Rs 1,45,053 crore for the same period in previous year. The Centre had recently revised the direct tax collection target to Rs 3,95,000 crore. In 2007-08, the direct tax collections of the centre stood at Rs 3,14,468 crore (provisional).

The Centre’s personal income-tax collections were pegged at Rs 5,782 crore in November 2008, reflecting a 31.28 per cent decline over the collections of Rs 8,414 crore recorded in the same month last year.

Corporate tax collections too declined in November 2008 on a year-on-year basis.

In November 2008, the Centre’s corporate tax collections stood at Rs 4,561 crore, recording a decline of 41 per cent over the collection level of Rs 7,741 crore in the same month last year.