India?s top corporates have said it loud and clear that good times are back as taxes paid by them on the income for the fiscal 2009-10 grew over 18% compared to the previous fiscal that was hit by financial crisis. Based on a wide ranging data for 100 firms that include banks, oil, steel, insurance, software and others, the income tax payments of these firms rose 18.26% this fiscal over last year?s to Rs 83,727 crore. The growth in tax payments mostly has been witnessed by domestic banking firms, heavy industries, auto, cement and pharmaceuticals.
Though, finance ministry officials still have fingers crossed over meeting the revised tax collection target for the fiscal at Rs 3.87 lakh crore as some of the sectors have not fared well to give enough confidence to them. Those showing discouraging numbers are foreign banks, steel and mining, a finance ministry official told FE. State owned and domestic banks like State Bank of India showed a 14% increase in total taxes paid for the fiscal at Rs 6,552 crore. Punjab National Bank gave 35% more to the tax man this year as compared to last fiscal.Union Bank and Canara Bank have also shown a decent growth. Among private banks, Standard Chartered and HDFC?s tax payments grew 15% each. Another, sector that has witnessed growth is auto with leading auto firms like Maruti posted an over 100% growth in tax payments for the fiscal at around Rs 1000 crore while Tata Motors has given 300% more taxes at Rs 445 crore. The cement companies have also shown improvement along with FMCG and aeronautics.
However, the revenue department is not very sure about the target it has to meet, including the revised target. ?We have to wait and watch. The growth in to 100 firms may well be an indicator but if the improvement is even across all sectors, we can be hopeful of meeting the revised target,? said and official. Some companies like Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, NMDC and foreign banks like Deutche Bank have not done so well with regard to tax payments for the financial year as compared to the previous fiscal. Among the bigger private players, Reliance and ITC have made a remarkable improvement in terms of advance tax paid for the fourth quarter of this fiscal as compared to the last fiscal and also in terms of the overall taxes paid during the whole year against the last financial year. While Reliance paid Rs 770 crore advance tax in during this quarter, a jump of more than 50% as compared to only Rs 365 crore in the Jan-March 2009 quarter.