Tax data shows how Covid-19 crushed small companies while big ones made hay

Listed firms paid Rs 35,000 cr more tax this year, even as corporate tax mop up fell by Rs 1 trn. Pvt ltd firms and the non-corporate sector paid Rs 1.35 trn less, which means their profits dived

The pandemic and the lockdowns lopped off three per cent of India’s economy in nominal terms in 2020-21, affecting the government’s tax collection. Personal income tax revenue fell commensurately by two per cent, but revenue from corporation tax, levied on company profits, fell much more, by 18 per cent.

This would generally give the impression that companies like Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services, Bajaj Finance and HDFC Bank, which are among the biggest corporate taxpayers, bore the brunt of the slowdown and paid less tax in FY21 as their profits were badly impacted.

But the reality is otherwise.

Two pieces of data show that the pandemic was much harsher on private limited companies, and even smaller non-corporate sector firms (businesses not registered with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs) than the universe of listed companies. 

On the whole, revenue from corporation tax fell by nearly Rs 1 trillion from Rs 5.57 trillion in 2019-20 to Rs 4.57 trillion in 2020-21. The collection in FY21, in fact, hit a low last seen five years ago in financial year 2015-16. 

On the other hand, tax paid by listed companies actually grew by Rs 35,000 crore from FY20 to FY21. 

Listed companies, which are a subset of the universe on which corporation tax is imposed, pay the bulk of corporation tax. Private limited firms, limited liability partnerships, one-person companies form the rest of the universe. 

Putting these two data points together shows that taxes paid by private companies, LLPs and small and medium enterprises actually fell by about Rs 1.35 trillion. 

Though this conclusion was gradually becoming visible over the past year, it is the first time that tax data has shown such a stark contrast.

In short, despite a precipitous fall in the overall collection of taxes on companies, listed peers gave a bounty to the government. In fact, they forked out the highest amount they've ever paid, at a time when India suffered the worst contraction since Independence.

Was this stellar performance by listed firms at the cost of the smaller unlisted entities and MSMEs? Experts think so. 

“Many of the non-corporate or smaller entities got wiped out in the ordeal. Their demand shifted to the larger companies. Corporate results taken as a whole seem to suggest that,” Pronab Sen, India’s former chief statistician told Business Standard. 

Explaining this, he said that listed companies had the advantage of access to cheaper market finance, when banks were wary of lending. They raised fairly large sums of money at cheaper costs. Unlisted companies didn't have that option, Sen said. 

“It may well be the case that shift in demand got absorbed by entities that were able to raise capital, or the listed firms,” he added. 

The data that will further validate this is the turnover of the unlisted corporate universe. This data is not released by the MCA. 

But the turnover of listed companies certainly rose faster than the gross domestic product in FY21. 

An analysis by State Bank of India corroborates these findings, using a different sample from the same source. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economist at India’s largest bank, came to a very similar conclusion. 

“Even though there is a drop in overall corporation tax in FY21, the data for listed companies in a sample of around 4,000 companies shows an increase in taxes paid by around Rs 50,000 crore,” he told Business Standard.  

He said that the trend is very likely continuing in the current financial year (FY22), with some sectors like metals having the largesse from an extended bull run in the commodity cycle. 

Another factor that may be responsible for the smaller tax outgo of unlisted and small companies is that most companies would have paid tax at a lower tax rate in FY21. The government slashed corporation tax rate to 25 per cent  for companies with turnover upto Rs 400 crore, in September 2019. 

Apart from this, the extended low interest rate regime and significant expenditure rationalisation by companies also bolstered the flagging top line of companies in FY21, Ghosh said. 

The final factor that contributed to lowering the net collection of corporation tax in FY21 — gross collection minus refunds — is the high payout of refunds by the tax department last year. 

“The Central Board of Direct Taxes has issued refunds of more than Rs 2.62 trillion [in 2020-21]… as against total refunds of Rs 1.83 trillion issued during the… previous fiscal, marking an increase of 43.2 per cent,” the department said in a press release.