Hyderabad: At a time when the country’s attention has been diverted to the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the protests that are continuing, the country’s economy appears to be going from bad to worse.
In what is being described as a worrisome development, the continuing economic slowdown has hugely impacted the overall Income-Tax collections up to December 15 — the third instalment for payment of advance tax. The total net collections so far this financial year stand at a little over Rs 6.75 lakh crore (Rs 6,75,407.2 crore last year) while the figure for the same period in the last financial year was over Rs 6.70 lakh crore (Rs 6,70,738.1 crore last year) registering an overall growth of a mere 0.7 per cent. For 2019-2020, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has set a target of Rs 13.8 lakh crore for the income tax department.
As per the latest figures available with Deccan Chronicle, the corporate tax collected (till December 15) is over Rs 3.68 lakh crore and income-tax Rs 2.98 lakh crore. Most states have fared poorly and the growth percentage has dipped to minus.
The financial capital — Mumbai — registered a growth of just 4.6 per cent as the total net collection stood at over Rs 1.82 lakh crore as against Rs 1.74 lakh crore the previous financial year. Next in the list is the Delhi region whose growth rate dipped to minus 7.6 per cent with collections of a little over Rs 89,317 crore (`96,624 crore last year).
In the south, the Chennai I-T region's net collection was Rs 43,197 crore (Rs 42,298 crore last year) and growth rate was 2.1 per cent. The Hyderabad I-T region’s (which includes Telangana state and AP) collections stood at Rs 33,965 crores `32,960 crore last year) registering a growth of three per cent. Bengaluru fared poorly, its net collections standing at Rs 66,408 crore (Rs 69,068 crore last year) and its growth rate went down to minus 3.9 per cent while in the Kochi I-T region, the net collection was Rs 9,032 crore (Rs 8,821 crore last year) registering a growth rate of 2.4 per cent.
Officials say that not only are the net collections worrisome, they also have no clue how they would achieve the overall target of Rs 13.8 lakh crore, with a little over three months to go before the financial year comes to an end on March 31. “At this rate, it is impossible. Had the economy been doing well, by this period the figure would have crossed Rs 8.5 lakh crore to Rs 9 lakh crore,” they said adding that the target last year was Rs 11.5 lakh crore.
The Income-Tax regions which fared poorly are Delhi (-7.6 per cent growth), Bengaluru (-3.9), Guwahati (-19.9), Lucknow (-2.4), Jaipur (-19.6), Chandigarh (-1.0), Bhubaneshwar (2.6) and Bhopal (0.9).
