Life Insurance Corporation tops the list with Rs 1,200 crore.
Advance tax payouts by leading corporates mostly remained flat in the third quarter, suggesting that the slowdown is impacting their bottom lines.
Advance tax payment by LIC and Bank of Baroda has shown an improvement, but L&T and General Insurance Corporation paid nearly the same as in the corresponding quarter last year.
Advance tax payment is a reflection of the health of a company, and the economy, and a lower payout indicates lower profitability. Companies pay the tax in four instalments. In the current quarter, they are bound to pay up 30 per cent of their annual tax liability.
LIC topped the list of companies that paid up advance tax this morning, with the amount at Rs 1,200 crore from Rs 1,070 crore a year ago, a senior income-tax official said here on Thursday. Engineering and construction conglomerate L&T’s payout was almost flat at Rs 350 crore, against Rs 340 crore, while Bank of Baroda saw its tax payout jump to Rs 550 crore from Rs 420 crore.
General Insurance Corporation, too, saw its tax liability go up marginally to Rs 135 crore for the third quarter from Rs 130 crore in the year-ago period.
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According to the initial list, industry leaders Reliance, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, TCS, Infosys, SBI, ICICI, HDFC and Mahindra & Mahindra are yet to make the payment, said the IT official, who requested not to be quoted. Pharma major Pfizer paid higher advance tax of Rs 300 crore for the third quarter this fiscal, as against Rs 250 crore last year, and Novartis also paid more tax, at Rs 200 crore versus Rs 180 crore.
However, Glaxo arm Glaxo India reported a lower advance tax payout of Rs 80 crore for Q3, FY’12, as against Rs 90 crore in the corresponding year-ago period. The list of companies that have made no advance tax payout is led by state-run oil marketers such as Indian Oil, which is the nation’s largest corporation by revenue, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. I-T official said oil companies usually do not pay advance taxes in the initial quarters, but in the last quarter, when the government pays them the subsidy compensation.
Central Bank of India saw its advance tax payment nosedive to Rs 100 crore from Rs 170 crore and so did Dena Bank, which paid only Rs 60 crore for Q3, FY’12, as against Rs 70 crore in the corresponding period last year. LIC Housing Finance fared comparatively better, with payment of Rs 90 crore this year, as against Rs 75 crore last year.
Significantly, despite the sharp slowdown in the manufacturing space, companies paid more taxes in this sector.
For instance, Tata Chemicals paid Rs 70 crore in comparison to Rs 60 crore last year and Tata Power paid Rs 80 crore as against Rs 60 crore, while Pidilite Industries — which manufactures and markets popular adhesive brand Fevicol — has paid Rs 30 crore for Q3 this year, compared to Rs 27 crore last year.
Alok Industries paid a tad less advance tax, at Rs 32 crore, as against Rs 35 crore last year.