Mumbai's tax mop-up looks up 17% in H1

Net tax collections from Mumbai during April 1-December 22 rose 17 per cent year-on-year to Rs 23,159 crore but far from the target of Rs 49,397 crore for 2004-05 (April-March), a senior tax official said on Thursday.

Up to December 22, net corporate tax collections rose only 4.7 per cent to Rs 14,650 crore, while income-tax collections surged 46.8 per cent to Rs 8,509 crore. Gross corporate tax collections till December 22 were at Rs 24,535 crore.

Refunds to companies rose 24.36 per cent between April 1-December 22 to Rs 9,885 crore.

Refunds for income-tax, however, fell nearly 60 per cent to Rs 635 crore. Total tax refunds till December 22 rose 10.3 per cent to Rs 10,520 crore. In 2004-05, Mumbai is supposed to contribute Rs 37,575 crore towards corporate tax and Rs 11,822 crore towards income-tax.

Mumbai accounts for nearly 35 per cent of the country's total direct tax collection and nearly 43 per cent of total corporate tax collection.

"Tax collections have not been as per our targets and this is essentially due to fall in earnings of oil companies and banks," the official said. The income-tax department is trying step up collection measures, including a plea to Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal to take up out-of-turn "high-value" cases.

"We are requesting the tribunal to take up cases having revenues over Rs 10 crore stuck in litigation on priority," the official said.

The department is also trying to put in place the mis-reportage of revenue collections.

According to the official, till September 2004 nearly Rs 1,800 crore worth corporate tax collection was mis-classified as income-tax. Not only this, advance tax collections up to another Rs 1,800 crore have also not been reported by banks to the income-tax department, the official said.

Due to improper reconciliation of tax challans by banks, which collect advance tax, the income-tax department has also noticed cases wherein excess refunds have been issued to assessees.