The increase in TDS receipts and buoyancy in corporate profits led to an increase in the direct tax collection, including corporate and personal income tax, by 46.95% to Rs 71,648 crore in April-July this year.

A finance ministry statement said, “Robust growth in direct tax collections is a result of tax education and compliance mechanism put in place by the Income Tax department in the area of tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collection at source (TCS) and indicates further improvement in tax administration and tax compliance levels.”

In the corporate TDS/TCS, the growth was particularly high at 60.6%. According to the analysts, despite slowdown in industrial production, growth in tax collection will help the government to meet the fiscal deficit targets and at the same time footing the bill of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

The target of direct tax collections from Rs 3.65 lakh crore to about Rs 4 lakh crore has already been revised by the finance ministry.

The fiscal this year saw a growth of corporate taxes by 50.08% and at RS 41,598 crore during the first four months against Rs 27,718 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal.

On the other hand, a growth at 42.82% to Rs 29,982 crore was seen in personal income tax including fringe benefit tax, security transaction tax and banking cash transaction against Rs 20,993 crore.

FBT during the April-July period touched Rs 1,260 crore against Rs 873 crore a year ago, and grew by 44.34%.

Revenue collections from STT, however, rose by 15.46% and stood at RS 2,164 crore against Rs 1,874 crore during that period while collections from BCTT were up 33.75% to Rs 223 crore against Rs 167 crore.

If we talk about the growth experienced by the regions, then Nagpur posted a growth of 77.80% followed by 76.4% growth in Delhi. Kochi and Kolkata saw a growth of 58.08% and 49.87% respectively.

On the other hand, growth of tax collections in Mumbai was down to 36.70%, while Hyderabad showed a growth of 40.69% and Bengaluru 40.25%.