The direct tax collection by the government of India has jumped by 18.2 per cent during the first nine months of current fiscal at £65.6 billion. Direct taxes are made up of income tax paid by individuals, wealth tax and corporation tax paid by companies. According to the finance ministry, the net direct tax collections represent 67 per cent of the total budget estimates of direct taxes for FY 2017-18 (£98 billion), the statement said.
The gross collections have increased by 12.6 per cent to £76.8 billion during April to December, 2017. And in the same period, the government issued a refund of £11.2 billion. According to the Finance Ministry, the collection of advance tax has also gone up.
"An amount of £31.8 billion has been received as Advance Tax up to December 2017, reflecting a growth of 12.7 per cent over the Advance Tax payments of the corresponding period of last year," the ministry said.
While the country's direct tax collection has seen rise, the indirect tax collection has been on decline for the last two months. Last year in December, the government released the indirect tax collection data for November. In November, the GST revenue stood at £8.08 billion, down from over £8.30 billion in the previous month. Even in October, the tax collections were not in expected line. The GST for October had slipped by almost 10 per cent to £8.33 billion as compared to £9.21 billion in September.
Last year in July, India overhauled its taxation system by introducing GST for indirect tax collections. The first month revenue under GST was over £9.5 billion, however, in August the figure came down to £9.10 billion. Decline in GST collections could be attributed to multiple factors such as compliance and tax rate adjustments.
In November, the GST Council brought down the taxes on over 200 goods by 10 per cent. As many as 178 items of daily use were shifted from the highest tax bracket of 28 per cent to 18 per cent. Reports suggest that the GST Council is expected to meet on January 11 to deliberate on latest downward trend in revenue collection.
