The Hindu Business Line : Chidambaram confident of achieving revenue targets

"The revenue targets for the current fiscal are aggressive, but achievable," he told newspersons after releasing the actual revenue collections for 2004-05.

The UPA Government had budgeted gross tax revenue of Rs 3,70,025 crore for 2005-06 compared to revised estimates of Rs 3,06,021 crore for 2004-05.

The Government is betting high on direct tax collections to help achieve its targets for the current fiscal.

Mr Chidambaram highlighted that necessary infrastructure for improving tax compliance such as annual information return and tax information network were in place and this would help tax authorities plug evasion this year.

For 2004-05, total tax collections stood at Rs 3,03,856 crore, he said.

This was lower than the revised estimate of Rs 3,05,314 crore, mainly on account of lowering of excise duty on petro products and lower income-tax collections from banks and under-recovery from oil PSUs.

Indirect tax collections grew by over 16 per cent to Rs 1,71,131 crore from Rs 1,47,411 crore in 2003-04, marginally exceeding the revised estimate of Rs 1,71,120 crore.

Although direct tax collections grew by 26 per cent to Rs 1,32,725 crore (Rs 1,05,088 crore), the figure fell short of the revised target of Rs 1,34,194 crore.

This has been attributed to lower collections from banks and under-recovery from the oil PSUs.

"I am happy with the collections but not satisfied. As for personal income-tax, I am disappointed," Mr Chidambaram said.

Personal income tax collections grew by about 17 per cent to Rs 48,321 crore, but fell short of the revised estimate of Rs 50,929 crore.

Corporation tax collections grew by 31.5 per cent to Rs 83,581 crore (Rs 63,561 crore), exceeding the revised estimate of Rs 83,000 crore.

On the indirect tax side, Customs collections grew by 18.58 per cent to Rs 57,645 crore (Rs 48,613 crore), well over the revised target of Rs 56,250 crore.

However, the twin cuts in duties for petro products in June and August resulted in a growth of just 9.29 per cent in excise mop-up of Rs 99,352 crore (Rs 90,907 crore).

The performance on the excise front was 98.64 per cent of the revised target of Rs 1,00,720 crore.

Service tax collections stood at Rs 14,134 crore, marginally lower than the revised estimate of Rs 14,150 crore.

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