The Hindu Business Line : Personal income-tax collections down 31% in November

New Delhi, Dec. 5 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.

Personal income-tax collections indirectly mirror the state of the economy as these represents taxes from the salaried and informal businesses.

Seasonality

There is seasonality in direct tax collections and November is not generally a month where one sees strong corporate tax collections, industry observers pointed out.

Official data released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) here today showed that personal income-tax collections (includes BCTT, STT and FBT) during April-November 2008 stood at Rs 67,215 crore, reflecting a 15.28 per cent increase over the Rs 58,304 crore collected in the same period last year.

The break-up

While fringe benefit tax (FBT) grew 34.47 per cent during April-November 2008 at Rs 4,120 crore (Rs 3,064 crore), banking cash transaction tax (BCTT) grew 17.33 per cent at Rs 421 crore (Rs 359 crore). Securities transaction tax (STT), however, declined by 15.42 per cent to Rs 4,165 crore (Rs 4,924 crore).

For the April-November 2008 period, corporate tax collections grew 26.82 per cent at Rs 1,09,735 crore (Rs 86,526 crore).

Direct tax

Net direct tax collections for the first eight months of the current fiscal stood at Rs 1,77,251 crore, up 22.2 per cent from Rs 1,45,053 crore recorded in same period last year.

This 22.2 per cent increase in direct tax collections till November this fiscal is a shade lower than the 25 per cent increase in collections targeted for fiscal 2008-09.

The Centre had recently revised the direct tax collection target for 2008-09 to Rs 3,95,000 crore. In 2007-08, the direct tax collections of the centre stood at Rs 3,14,468 crore (provisional).

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