Tax collection surge despite the duty cuts and slowdown fear

10 Aug 2011 Evaluate

Allying the fears of slowdown in economic growth, the revenue collections have shown significant increase in the month of July. The direct tax collection increased by 26% to Rs 21,400 crore in July 2010 from Rs 16,972 crore in July 2010 mainly due to fall in the tax refunds. The tax refunds reduced to Rs 7,000 crore compared to previous month of current fiscal.

In April to July 2011 the indirect tax collections have increased by 27% to Rs 1,25,901 crore from Rs 99,057 crore in April to July 2010.  This increase in the indirect tax collection was led by service sector which jumped by 54.7 % to Rs 7,783 crore in July 2011 from Rs 5,030 crore in July 2010. During April to July 2011, service tax collection increased by 37.7 % to 27,454 crore from 19,934 crore in corresponding period of last year.

However, the direct tax collection fell by the 8 % to Rs 79,000 in April to July 2011 from Rs 85,647 in April to July 2010, mainly due to higher tax refunds. During the April to July 2011 the total refunds stood at Rs 53,000 crore which is less than the Rs 57,000 crore of refunds issues in the entire 2010-11. 

Despite the removal of custom and excise duty on petroleum products in month of June 2011, the collection of custom and excise duties have surged by 11% and 4.7% respectively. During April to July 2011 revenue collection from custom duty increased by 30.5% to Rs 50,705 crore from Rs 38,840 in April to July 2010. The excise duty also registered healthy growth in term of revenue collection, it surged by 18.6 % to Rs 47, 757 crore from Rs 40, 283 crore in April to July 2011. 

In the month of July, the finance ministry incurred loss of around Rs 1,600 crore and Rs 1,400 crore respectively with removal of excise and custom duties on diesel and petroleum products. The growth in excise and customs without the duty cut would have been about 18% and 25%, respectively.

The indirect tax receipts in first four months of 2011-12 are about 32% of the Budget Estimate of Rs 3,92,908 crore. The indirect tax mop-up in April to July increased 16.4 % to Rs 31,493 crore. On the other hand, the direct tax collection for the first four months of 2011-12 is just above 15 % of the Budget Estimate of Rs 5,32,651 crore for the current fiscal year.

Central Board of Excise & Customs chairman S Dutt Majumder, said, “This is a good showing despite the duty cuts. It shows manufacturing is not doing that bad. In service tax, we cannot expect the same kind of growth in the coming months but it may still grow at 30-35 %.”

Majumder further said the huge jump in service tax collections was due to the introduction of Point of Taxation Rules where the assessee has to pay service tax on accrual basis to the government in advance.

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