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Tax collections cross Budget estimates — On target nearly after a decade, says Finance Secretary

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The Revenue Secretary, Ms Vineeta Rai, with the Finance Secretary, Dr D. C. Gupta, at a press conference in the Capital on Tuesday. -- Kamal Narang

New Delhi , April 20

THE Centre on Tuesday reported that revenue collections for fiscal 2003-04 have exceeded Budget estimates for the first time since 1995-96.

The provisional figures for the fiscal ended March 31, 2004, have put total collections at Rs 2,52,162 crore against a Budget estimate of Rs 2,49,315 crore.

However, there is still a minor shortfall of 0.4 per cent in achieving the revised estimates of Rs 2,52,900 crore.

"After nearly a gap of a decade we are on target," the Finance Secretary, Mr D.C. Gupta, said at a press conference. He pointed out that revised estimates (RE) had been fixed higher than the budget estimates (BE) after a gap of nearly a decade.

Mr Gupta pointed out that the tax-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio stood at 9.1 per cent against 8.65 per cent in the previous fiscal. "Though tax-GDP ratio has shown a marginal improvement, it has gone above 9 per cent for the first time in five years," he said.

Direct tax collections were Rs 1,04,678 crore against the revised estimates of Rs 1,03,400 crore. The RE was fixed 8 per cent higher than the BE. The direct tax collections are 27 per cent higher than 2002-03. "The higher collections was because of better tax compliance," Mr Gupta said. Direct tax refunds aggregated Rs 24,888 crore from 51.43 lakh refunds.

On the indirect tax front, collections aggregated Rs 1,47,484 crore, slightly lower than the RE of Rs 1,49,500 crore. However, this was 12.3 per cent higher than the collections for 2002-03.

The Revenue Secretary, Ms Vineeta Rai, said that despite the recent excise and customs duty reductions, indirect tax collections have been more than 98.6 per cent of the RE. "Though the implication of the duty cuts for the last three months of fiscal 2003-04 being Rs 3,000 crore (out of the annual revenue implication of Rs 15,000 crore), the shortfall has been less than Rs 2,000 crore due to accelerated growth and better compliance," she said.

However, Ms Rai did not want to guess on the tax implication of the duty cuts for 2004-05. "The cuts were announced recently (January 2004). The full buoyancy has not been fully captured," she said.

Ms Rai said that excise collection from petroleum products (POL) was up by 10.72 per cent to Rs 38,505 crore, customs duty mop up from this account grew by 8.78 per cent to Rs 10,349 crore.

Excise from non-POL items grew by 12.86 per cent to Rs 52,121 crore, while customs collection was up by 7.9 per cent at Rs 38,257 crore.

The Finance Secretary said that trends on expenditure showed that the Government was well on the course of being within the targeted levels. "Though we do not have the final figures, the trend suggests that they are very much within estimates. The tax collections have been buoyant while we have also exceeded disinvestment targets. We have every reason to believe that the fiscal deficit target of 4.8 per cent would be met," Mr Gupta said.

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