Editor’s Pick

22 April 2024

In the Editor’s Pick newsletter, The Hindu explains why a story was important enough to be carried on the front page of today’s edition of our newspaper.

Net Direct Tax collections exceed revised estimates

India’s net direct tax collections increased 17.7% YoY to scale Rs 19.58 crore in FY 2023-24. This implied that net direct tax collections in the past financial year surpassed the revised estimates for the year. The Finance Ministry’s provisional data established that the uptick in collection over the final fortnight was led by personal income tax (PIT) and securities transaction tax (STT) collections. Whilst the net corporate tax kitty shrank a little.

PIT and STT receipts grew at almost double the pace of corporate taxes last year. As of March 17, PIT and STT had together accounted for about 51.4% of the receipts. Personal income tax collection increased its contribution in the tally to 53.3% from 50.06% on a YoY basis. On the other hand, corporate taxes’ contribution dipped to 46.5% from 49.6%.

Perhaps, the only downside to the paradigm emerged from collections of net tax receipts from corporates, calculated after adjusted for refunds. It dropped from Rs 9.14 lakh crore on March 17 to Rs 9.11 lakh crore.

The Ministry also informed Sunday that refunds of Rs 3.79 lakh crore have been issued in the FY 2023-24 – an increase of 22.74% on a YoY basis. Ease of living and doing business had been advocated by the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her interim budget speech this year as well. She had stated there existed a “large number of petty, non-verified, non-reconciled or disputed direct demands”. Many of these went as far back as 1962. The finance minister had proposed to withdraw outstanding tax demands up to Rs 25,000 for the period up to financial year 2009-10 and up to Rs 10,000 for financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15.

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