Net direct tax collections till September 22 grew 74%, says Finance Ministry

The collections from April 1-September 22 this year were 27 percent higher even compared to the same period of pre-pandemic 2019-20 when net direct tax collection was Rs 4.49 lakh crore.

Arup Roychoudhury

September 24, 2021 / 17:37 IST

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Gross direct tax collections at the near-halfway mark of the current fiscal year grew 47 percent, while net tax collections rose by 74 percent, the Finance Ministry said on September 24.

In a statement, the ministry said that as of September 22, net direct tax collections stood at Rs 5.71 lakh crore, a jump of 74 percent over Rs 3.27 lakh crore for the same period in 2020-21. The collections from April 1-September 22 this year were 27 percent higher even compared to the same period of pre-pandemic 2019-20 when net direct tax collection was Rs 4.49 lakh crore.

“The gross direct taxes till September 22 stand at Rs. 6.46 lakh crore compared to Rs 4.39 lakh crore in the corresponding period of the preceding financial year, registering a growth of 47 percent,” the Finance Ministry said. The gross collections till September 22 were 16.7 percent higher than the same period in 2019-20.

The halfway-mark of fiscal 2021-22 will be September 30. The collections till September 22 show that recovery has been very strong since the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in April and May. That apart, strong GST collections mean that the tax revenues this fiscal year could exceed the budget targets.

2020-21 saw a nationwide lockdown in April-June where almost all economic activity came to a halt. Though the second wave saw higher COVID cases and deaths, the central, state, and local administrations had by then learned to deal with containment zones in a much better manner, thus ensuring that economic activity persisted.

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