The advance tax paid by corporates during the January-March period of the current fiscal has shown a mixed trend, with Reliance Industries, SBI and TCS paying more than the year-ago period while ICICI Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Steel reporting decline in their payment.

As per the initial data, country?s largest lender SBI paid 10% more at R1,650 crore in final installment and largest private company Reliance Industries? outgo increased 7% to R1,130 crore. IT firm TCS has paid 175% more tax during the quarter at R550 crore.

However, India?s largest private sector bank ICICI Bank?s tax payment declined. It paid R430 crore, a decrease of over 4% as compared to corresponding period last fiscal. The tax outgo of M&M dipped 33% to R200 crore, while it was over 5% less at R900 crore for Tata Steel.

The moderate growth of overall advance tax payment is not a good sign as government is struggling to meet its direct tax collection target of R5.32 lakh crore for the current fiscal. The direct tax mop-up until January has grown by a mere 9.28% to R3.46 lakh crore, well below 19% growth required to take the collection for the full fiscal to the budgeted level.

This means the finance ministry had to mobilise up to R1.86 lakh crore in the last two months to achieve the target. During October-December this fiscal, top 100 corporates paid 1.4% less advance tax at R30,763 crore, Among other firms which paid more advance tax during January-March include LIC, Bajaj Auto and HDFC. LIC?s tax outgo increased by 4% to R971 crore, while Bajaj Auto paid R290 crore, an increase of 16% and HDFC?s tax outgo rose 17% to R400 crore.

The revenue collection has been hit by slowdown of GDP growth. The Indian economy is likely to grow 6.9% in the current fiscal as compared to 8.4% in the last financial year.