Comments
The government’s net direct tax collection rose over 23 per during the first eight months of the current fiscal, Finance Ministry said on Thursday. With this, over 56 per cent of the budget estimate has been achieved. Officials say if the present trend continues, collection at the end of the fiscal year will exceed the budget estimate.
Direct taxes include personal income tax (PIT) and corporate income tax (CIT), besides taxes such as securities transaction tax (STT).
In a series of social media posts, the Ministry said net collection during April-November reached ₹10.6-lakh crore, which is over 23 per cent higher than collection of over ₹8.6-lakh crore during the corresponding period of FY23. The Budget estimated net direct tax collection at ₹18.22-lakh crore during FY24, which is around 28 per cent higher than the Budget estimate for FY23 and around 10.4 per cent of the revised estimate.
Direct tax collection in April 1-June 17 rises 12.7%
Growth factors
With the kind of rise seen till date, officials expect net collection at the end of the fiscal year to exceed the budget estimate by a good margin. Although the Finance Ministry’s posts did not mention specific reasons for such a growth, officials listed three reasons for the rise – better compliance, profitability of the corporate sector, and a rise in the income of salaried and other individuals. Recovery in the economy has been key to growth in all taxes, officials added.
Surge in net collection has been seen even as the Ministry said that refunds amounting to ₹2.03-lakh crore were issued during the April-November period. Special initiatives were taken for cases where refund had failed initially and was subsequently issued to validated bank accounts, the Ministry said. Gross collection (net collection plus refunds) during the period under consideration rose 18 per cent to ₹12.7-lakh crore from ₹10.8 lakh crore.
The Ministry also highlighted that updated return facility has given good results. Under this facility, a taxpayer can update her/his return within two years from the end of relevant assessment year but with additional payment. As on November 30, over 44.76 lakh updated returns filed and the government got additional tax of over ₹4,000 crore.
The Ministry highlighted number of income tax returns. As on November 30, about 7.97 crore returns have been filed, out of which 7.76 crore for Assessment Year 2023-24 (FY23). The Ministry credited ease of compliance with smoother and faster filing of ITRs for record number. ITRs with pre-filled data expanded to include salary, interest, dividend, TDS-related information, brought forward losses, MAT credit, etc.
Income Tax Return: Milestone
- 486 returns filed in a second at 4.35 pm on July 31, 2023
- 8622 returns filed in a minute at 5.54 pm on July 31, 2023
- 4.97 lakh returns filed in an hour at 5-6 pm on July 31, 2023
- 64.33 lakh retrun filed a day on July 31, 2023
- 5.5 crore returns filed in a month (July 2023)
- Over 1.66 crore ITRs (for A.Y. 2023-24) processed in a single day
- Average processing time reduced from 16 days in FY 2022-23 to 10 days in FY 2023-23 per cent of ITRs processed within 24 hours of filing.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.