Tax collection to exceed budget estimates this fiscal: Jaitley

2016 has been an epic year in terms of plethora of developments happened over the year. Starting from GST to Demonetisation to shifting of budget day, there have been real game-changer developments in the nation.

Amid all the highly unexpected developments, there is one news for India, which has come like a cherry on the cake. The tax kitty of India’s financial system has risen manifold this year, so much that it has even beaten the budgets.

Direct tax collections, which are made up of individual income tax and corporate tax, has proliferated to Rs 5.57 lakh crore between 1 April- 19 December, thereby meeting 65 percent of the Budget estimates.

Central excise, customs and service tax make up for indirect tax segment. Indirect tax collections till November had shown a 26.2 percent jump to Rs 5.52 lakh crore when compared with a year ago collections. This constituted 71.1 percent of the Budget estimate.

The news was reaffirmed by Arun Jaitley, the Finance Minister of India. He said, “We will end this year with higher revenues both direct and indirect taxes, higher than budgeted. Not only are we going to reach the budget estimates, we will exceed the budget estimates both in direct tax and indirect tax this year.”

In the Budget, he had estimated a 12.64 percent growth in direct tax to Rs 8.47 lakh crore for 2016-17 and 10.8 percent in indirect tax at Rs. 7.79 lakh crore.

He reiterated that the sole reason behind advancing the Budget day is to make certain that actual expenditure starts from April 1, when the financial year begins. The decision is also directed towards bettering the agricultural sector in a substantial manner.

To a query in nexus with the opposition parties demanding postponing of the Budget day due to the approaching state elections, Jaitley said, “They say the popularity of demonetisation is very low. Then, why are they worried about the  Budget?”

Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi informed that various political parties had represented on the February 1 presentation of the Union Budget, while the poll campaign was still slated to be conducted in five states.

 

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