The revenue department collected Rs 5,000 crore more than the revised direct tax collection target of Rs 6.36 lakh crore, Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman RK Tewari told FE on Wednesday. In view of the slowdown in the economy, the finance ministry had lowered its original direct tax target of Rs 6.68 lakh crore.
Indirect tax collection is expected to have fallen short of the revised target by close to Rs 17,000 crore. The Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) said they might miss the revised the target of Rs 5.2 lakh crore in view of the contraction in manufacturing activity and sluggish economic growth.
That means the government is expected to report a tax revenue shortfall of over Rs 10,000-12,000 crore for 2013-14 against the RE. But it is believed that expenditure compression in the final months enabled the government to stick to the revised fiscal deficit target of 4.6% for FY 13.
What has helped the direct tax administration in exceeding the revised target as well as reaching close to the original target was a major drive employing third party intelligence and information technology tools to reach out to assessees, whose spending and investment pattern did not agree with their reported income.
On disinvestment, what has been achieved is way below the budget estimate but actuals exceeded the revised estimate. After the partial SUUTI stake sale in Axis Bank and floating of the CPSE ETF, the proceeds from disinvestment crossed the revised estimates by about Rs 3,800 crore at Rs 22,856 crore as on March 21. The budget estimate was Rs 54,000 crore.
In the last few weeks of the fiscal 2013, the department had canceled the leaves of direct tax officials involved in collections and asked the indirect tax administration to act tough on manufacturers and dealers who evade excise duty payments and abuse duty credit facilities.
