12% growth in tax collections achievable in FY21: Revenue Secretary

10 Feb 2020 Evaluate

Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey has said that a 12 percent growth in tax collections is achievable in the next financial year (FY21) in an economy that is estimated to clock a 10 percent nominal GDP growth. He said the economy slowing down to its slowest growth in 11 years together with a cut in corporate tax rates led to the government missing its tax collection target by a wide margin in the current fiscal. He added that the tax shortfall also led to slipping on fiscal deficit target for the third year in a row.

Revenue Secretary has stated that the Union Budget has pegged gross tax revenues for 2020-21 at Rs 24.23 lakh crore, up 12 percent from Rs 21.63 lakh crore in the current fiscal. He also said that the revenue growth budgeted for current fiscal was calculated assuming a 12 percent nominal GDP growth. However, the nominal GDP growth came in at 7.5 percent. He said in the current fiscal, the gross tax revenue is 4 percent higher than Rs 20.80 lakh crore collected in 2018-19 fiscal. But, the government had estimated an 11 percent gross tax revenue growth in 2019-20.

Explaining further, he said, ‘this year we have shown a tax revenue growth of 4 per cent. 7 percent growth we had to forego on account of corporate tax (cut). So 4 per cent (growth) means actually 11 percent achievement. On 7.5 percent nominal growth if you are achieving 11 per cent (tax revenue) growth, we can't say that this is unrealistic’.

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