Also, average tax paid by an individual filer came in at close to Rs
35,000 in H1, up from a little over Rs 27,000 in April-August
In
the face of below-par indirect tax collection, the government has been
pinning its hope on better-than-estimated direct tax mop-up to ease
pressure on fiscal deficit breaching the target of 3.3% of GDP for the
current fiscal.
Even after the deadline for filing income tax returns ended on August
31, the growth in taxpayers filing e-returns continued to grow
robustly, and for April-September, a 65% growth was witnessed over the
year-ago period, data from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)
showed. The growth in the April-August period was 70%. Moreover, the
average tax paid by an individual filer came in at close to Rs 35,000 in
H1, up from a little over Rs 27,000 in April-August. Industry experts
said that the rise in the average tax paid was attributable to the
second tranche of advance tax — 45% of the assessed advance tax was to
be paid by September 15 — paid by larger assessees.
As a result, personal income tax collected in September stood at Rs
49,354 crore — the highest
monthly collection since April. FE had
earlier reported that despite a growth in taxpayers filing returns, the
average ticket size had been going down progressively over the last five
years. In the previous two years (FY18 and FY17), while the growth rate
for e-filers for the respective April-September periods were 19% and
18%, respectively, the average tax paid had declined marginally from
about Rs 50,000 to Rs 48,800.
In the face of below-par indirect tax collection, the government has
been pinning its hope on better-than-estimated direct tax mop-up to ease
pressure on fiscal deficit breaching the target of 3.3% of GDP for the
current fiscal. Slower-than-projected growth in revenue, especially tax
and disinvestment receipts, resulted in the Centre’s fiscal deficit in
the first six months of this fiscal to be about Rs 5.95 lakh crore or
95.3% of the full-year target, according to data released by the
Controller General of Accounts on Thursday.
In the corresponding period last year, the deficit was 91.3% of the
relevant annual target and the government finally had to allow a 33
basis points slippage from the targeted deficit of 3.2% of GDP for FY18.
Net tax receipts (post refunds and devolution to states) grew just 7.5%
in H1FY19 against the year-ago period. A y-o-y growth of 19% is
required to raise the budgeted amount of Rs 14.8 lakh crore from taxes
for the full year.
Even though first, demonetisation, and later, the GST helped add pace
to tax base expansion, the rate of growth in personal income tax
collection hasn’t risen commensurately. The fact that the average income
tax paid by individual taxpayers has come down indicates that mere
inclusion of more assessees, who contribute little to the tax revenue,
won’t immediately serve the purpose of improving the tax-GDP ratio.