Spurt in indirect tax mop up to help govt meet FY16 target

Indirect tax collection is likely to exceed by about Rs 40,000 crore this fiscal that will help the government meet the budgetary target of revenue collection for the first time in five years

This will also make up for the expected shortfall in the direct tax collections, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said on Wednesday

Of the Rs 14.49 lakh crore budgeted tax revenue target for 2015-16, Rs 7.97 lakh crore was estimated to come from direct taxes (corporate and income tax) and another Rs 6.47 lakh crore from indirect taxes (customs, excise and service tax)

"We are likely to exceed the collection in indirect tax by about Rs 40,000 crore in the current year. On the whole, we are very optimistic about achieving annual tax revenue target for the year," Adhia said

The government invariably falls short of tax collection target and had last time exceeded the budgeted target in 2011 fiscal

In the first 10 months of the current fiscal, indirect tax mop up of Rs 5.44 lakh crore was 88 per cent of the full year target. Besides, direct tax collection of Rs 5.22 lakh crore was 65 per cent of target for 2015-16

"Looking at the trend, it appears that as far as indirect tax collections are concerned, the government may get more than Rs 40,000 crore over and above the BE (budget estimate) target for indirect taxes for 2015-16 while there might be an equal amount of shortfall in direct tax collections

"However, both direct and indirect tax collections put together, we expect to meet the annual BE target of Revenue collections for the current year without any shortfall," Adhia said in a statement

The tax revenue trends, he said, supports the latest figures of GDP growth rate

The CSO has projected Indian economy to grow by 7.6 per cent in the current fiscal, the fastest pace in five year.