Direct tax collections surge by 17.63% and surpass revised estimates target.
- India’s net direct tax collections for 2022-23 have increased by 17.63% to reach ₹16.61 lakh crore, according to provisional data released by the Finance Ministry on April 3.
- This exceeds the revised estimates target for the year by 0.7%.
- Corporate tax collections contributed ₹10.04 lakh crore to the gross direct tax collections, while personal income tax and Securities Transaction Tax (STT) together contributed ₹9.61 lakh crore.
- At a gross level, personal income tax and STT made up 48.9% of the tax kitty in 2022-23, up from around 47.4% in 2021-22. Corporate tax accounted for just 51.1% in the year gone by, compared to 52.6% in 2021-22.
- The growth in corporate tax collections was lower than the growth in revenues collected from personal income taxpayers and STT inflows.
- Gross corporate tax collections rose by 16.9% in the year, while personal income tax and STT yielded a growth of 24.23%.
- gross tax collections grew 20.33% to ₹19.68 lakh crore in 2022-23, compared to ₹16.36 lakh crore in the previous financial year.
- Tax refunds jumped at a sharper 37.4% year-on-year to a little over ₹3.07 lakh crore from ₹2,23,658 crore in 2021-22.
Higher growth
- Direct tax collections for 2021-22 were ₹16.32 lakh crore, while for 2022-23, they are estimated to be around ₹19.65 lakh crore, indicating a growth of 20.38%.
- The Budget Estimates for direct tax revenue for FY 2022-23 were set at ₹14.20 lakh crore, which were later revised to ₹16.50 lakh crore.
- According to the Finance Ministry, provisional direct tax collections (net of refunds) have exceeded the Budget Estimates by 16.97% and Revised Estimates by 0.69%.
- In 2021-22, net direct tax collections had grown just over 49% to ₹14.12 lakh crore. As of March 10, 2023, the net direct tax collections had grown around 16.8% to ₹13.73 lakh crore over the corresponding period of the previous year.
- Although officials expected the full-year growth rate to moderate from that level, the provisional higher growth rate of 17.6% came as a pleasant surprise to most analysts.