As per the recently released Government reports and statements a 13% drop has been reported in Gross Direct Tax
The Government Officials said that “Collections from direct taxes have been dismal, but with lower refunds, the net revenue position of the government is fairly positive at the moment. However, with even the central bank talking of negative growth this fiscal year, we have to relook the Budget targets,”. They also added that “the revenue collection estimate should be in line with the GDP growth forecast”.
Officials also shared their worry that the net collection is expected to come under pressure in the upcoming months when the base effect wears off due to the pandemic and economic crisis. On Friday RBI also said that India’s GDP growth
The tax department missed the revised target for direct tax collections for Financial Year 2020 by Rs 1.42 trillion. To achieve Rs 10.27 trillion, which is a 9% yearly fall. A boost of 28.2% will be required to achieve the collection target of 13.29 trillion, meanwhile, the projected rate in the budget is 12.2%. Additionally, the refund of around Rs 52,491 crores is pending in around 40000 cases. These cases are either under investigation or scrutiny or pending at AO. Out of these 52,491 crores, the refund of Rs 36,155 crores are pending in cases of scrutiny. Refunds of around Rs 16,336 crore are pending at AO.
A government official said that “There has been no administrative instruction to clear refunds in cases picked up for scrutiny, or those pending at the assessing officers’ end,”. Revenue collection from TCS also dropped to 22% as of May 10, which was the last day for TDS payments
In last year between May 1, to May 10 the TDS collection was Rs 56,447 crore but this year it is settled to Rs 44,110 crore only in the same period. The Financial Year 2020-2021 revenue estimation was based on an assumed nominal GDP growth rate of 10%, meaning a tax jump of 1.2. The Economic Survey had estimated the GDP growth at 6.0–6.5% for Financial Year 2020-2021, which seems elusive now. Whereas, the IMF in its World Economic Outlook report has cut India’s growth forecast for Financial Year 2020-21 to 1.9% which was estimated 5.8 percent in January.