Direct tax collections up 19.1% in April-July at Rs1,90,000 crore

Direct tax collections (net of refunds) during the first four months of the current financial year (April-July 2017-18) recorded a growth of 19.1 per cent at 1,90,000 crore.

Direct tax collection during the period is about 19.5 per cent of the total budget estimates (BE) of direct taxes for the 2017-18 financial year, a finance ministry release stated.

While in terms of gross revenue collections, both corporate income tax (CIT) and personal income tax (PIT) continued to grow at a steady rate, personal income tax collection grew at a faster rate, it said.

Corporate income tax collections recorded a growth of 7.2 per cent while personal income tax collection increased by 17.5 per cent during the April-July 2017-18 period.

However, after adjusting for refunds, net growth in CIT collections is 23.2 per cent while that in PIT collections is 15.7 per cent.

Refunds during April-July 2017-18 were 5.1 per cent lower at Rs61,920 crore year-on-year.

According to government estimates, the number of tax returns filed during the current fiscal stood at 28.3 million against 22.7 million I-T returns filed during the period in the previous fiscal - a growth of 24.7 per cent compared with a 9.9 per cent growth in the year-ago period

Individual tax returns filed were up 25.3 per cent at 27.9 million.

Finance ministry attributes this to the demonetisation impact and its anti-black money drive.

"This clearly shows that a substantial number of new tax payers have been brought into the tax net subsequent to demonetisation," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had said in a statement.

In 2016-17, the government collected over Rs 8.49 lakh crore in direct taxes, 14.5 per cent higher than the previous year. Collections have grown steadily since 2013-14.