Poor corporate tax collection restricted the growth of gross direct tax collection to six per cent in the first six months (April-September) of the current fiscal 2012-13, much below the 15 per cent target.
The Government has set a target of Rs 5.70 lakh crore for 2012-13.
In fact, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had said that tax collection is expected to improve in the second half (October-March) of the year. In his review meeting on Monday, Chidambaram directed both the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Excise and Custom (CBEC) to meet the target.
A Finance Ministry statement issued on Wednesday said that while gross collection of corporate taxes showed an increase of 1.60 per cent (Rs 1.78 lakh crore as against Rs. 1.75 lakh crore), gross collection of personal income tax was up by 14.87 per cent (Rs 93,451 crore as against Rs 81,353 crore last year) in the first half of current fiscal.
At the same time, collection from Securities Transaction Tax (STT) went down by 17 per cent to touch Rs 2,076 crore as against Rs 2,502 crore in first six months of the last fiscal. Wealth tax collection showed a growth of nearly 54 per cent (Rs 474 crore against Rs 308 crore).
However, net direct tax collection (gross collection minus refund and other administrative expenses) grew by over 16 per cent to touch Rs 2.26 lakh crore as against Rs 1.94 lakh crore collected during April-September of 2011-12.