Centre's tax collections net of refunds up 6% in April-May

The budget for 2013-14 projected the collections to grow by 18.07% at Rs 6.68 lakh crore in 2013-14

Centre's direct taxcollections, net of refunds, grew just 6.44% at RS 37,596 crore in the first two months of the current financial year against Rs 35,322 crore in the corresponding period of 2012-13.

The budget for 2013-14 projected the collections to grow by 18.07% at Rs 6.68 lakh crore in 2013-14

However, this is due to a whopping refunds of Rs 25,656 crore in the two months, up 51.72 over Rs 16,909 crore over the corresponding period of last fiscal.


Otherwise, direct tax mop up, inclusive of refunds, grew 21.10% at 63,252 crore in April-May, 2013-14 against Rs 52,231 crore in the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

While corporate tax collections, inclusive of refunds, increased  of  14.91 % at Rs 27,957 crore against Rs. 24,329, personal income tax mop up rose 27.29 % at Rs 34,805 crore as against Rs 27,343 crore in the same period during last year.

High gross tax collections can be a rough indicator of some kind of economic recovery in the first two months of the current financial year.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said his ministry will try to augment receipts to achieve the target of fiscal deficit, pegged at 4.8% of GDP for the current financial year.

However, tax collections from transactions in stock markets revealed another story. Collections from securities transaction tax (STT) fell 14.63% at Rs 461 crore in these two months of the current financial year against Rs 540 crore in the same period during last fiscal. These also reflected cut in STT.

The budget had lowered STT on equity futures to 0.01% from 0.017%, on mutual fund (MF) and exchange traded funds (ETF) redemptions at fund counters from 0.25% to 0.001% and MF-ETF on purchase and sale on exchanges from 0.1 to 0.001% only on the seller.

Elsewhere, wealth tax collections grew 86.67% at Rs 28 crore against Rs 15 crore.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/centre-s-tax-collections-net-of-refunds-up-6-in-april-may-113060700928_1.html