Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj wants to be cautious even though both indirect and direct tax collections during the first two quarters of this fiscal year have shown buoyancy.
Bajaj said the government is now eyeing ₹1.15-lakh crore average monthly GST collection.
In an interview to BusinessLine, he said that though the collections are good, the government is keeping its fingers crossed for the next two quarters.
GST collection
On GST collections, he said, “My own view is that the ₹1-lakh crore figure that we were looking at will see a change. We will now perhaps not talk about numbers below ₹1.15- lakh crore.” GST collections, barring in June, have been over ₹1-lakh crore during last 11 months.
Total indirect tax collection, including the Centre’s share of GST, was ₹5.19-lakh crore in the April-August period, showing a growth rate of 41 percent over the corresponding previous period and 28 percent higher than in the same period of 2019-20.
Talking about direct taxes till date, Bajaj said the net collection has grown 74.4 percent over the corresponding previous period and 27 percent over 2019-20. “I would still say we need to keep our finger crossed. We have to see the third and fourth quarters because last year these two quarters were very good. So, we have to see comparative number for these two quarters,” he said.
Bajaj said the advance tax collection during the second three-month period (July 1 to September 22, due date September 15) was over ₹1.72-lakh crore, a growth of 51 per cent over the corresponding period in 2020-21 when the mop-up exceeded ₹ 1.13 lakh crore
The gross direct taxes (before adjusting for refunds) collection for 2021-22 surged to over ₹6.45-lakh crore, registering a growth of 47 percent over the ₹4.39-lakh crore collected the previous year. It is also 16.75 percent higher than the 2019-20 figure of over ₹5.53-lakh crore. Gross collections for the current fiscal include corporate tax of over ₹3.58 lakh crore and personal income tax of over ₹2.86 lakh crore.
The government has issued refund of over ₹75,000 crore during current fiscal as on date.