Direct tax revenue kitty grows 19% in Apr-July to Rs 1.90 lakh crore, says finance ministry

New Delhi Direct tax collection registered a steady growth of 19.1 percent in the first four months of the current fiscal to Rs 1.90 lakh crore. The collection for the April-July period is 19.5 percent of the Rs 9.80 lakh crore target from this segment for the entire 2017-18. “Direct tax collection during the said period, net of refunds, stands at Rs 1.90 lakh crore which is 19.1 percent higher than the net collections for the corresponding period of last year,” a finance ministry statement said. The collection of direct tax, which consists of personal income tax and corporate tax, continue to register “steady growth”, it said. [caption id=“attachment_3908213” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] In April-July of last fiscal, 2016-17, the direct tax collection had grown 24.01 percent to Rs 1.59 lakh crore. In gross terms, the growth rate for corporate income tax is 7.2 percent, while that for personal income tax (including securities transaction tax) is 17.5 percent for April-July period of the current fiscal. However, after adjusting for refunds, the net growth in corporate tax collections is 23.2 percent while that in personal income tax collections is 15.7 percent. Refunds amounting to Rs 61,920 crore have been issued during April-July, 2017 which are 5.1 percent lower than the refunds issued during the corresponding period of 2016-17. Earlier this week, the government had released the numbers of income tax returns (ITR) filed, showing demonetisation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes had given substantial growth. The number of tax returns filed soared to 2.83 crore as against 2.27 crore in the previous year. The growth of 24.7 percent this year compared with 9.9 percent in the year-ago period. Individual tax returns filed were up 25.3 percent at 2.79 crore. “This clearly shows that a substantial number of new tax payers have been brought into the tax net subsequent to demonetisation,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had said in a statement. In 2016-17, the government collected over Rs 8.49 lakh crore in direct taxes, 14.5 percent higher than the previous year. The growth rate was highest since 2013-14.