 "Advance tax from steel, banking sectors falls")
Sectors like steel and banking paid less tax, even as advance tax collection from top 45 companies increased by eight per cent for the period ended September 15, a senior income-tax official said on Tuesday.
There was a fall in the advance tax collection from the general insurance sector.
"The advance tax collection from top-45 corporate houses is up by eight per cent for the quarter ended September 15," the principal chief commissioner of the income tax and head of mumbai zone, D S Saxena, said.
"Except for the country's largest lender the State Bank of India, the tax collection from the banking sector was down for the quarter. Similar was the case with the steel sector, which is also down...," he said.
Mortgage major Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) reported around 10 per cent increase in its advance tax outgo to Rs 810 crore for the second quarter of the current financial year. HDFC had paid Rs 735 crore of advance tax in the year-ago period, a company official said.
Private sector lender YES Bank witnessed a 30 per cent jump to Rs 310 crore from the year ago's Rs 238 crore. For Nabard, it was a Rs 20 crore jump to Rs 495 crore, banking sector sources said.
However, country's largest general insurer New India Assurance's tax dropped to Rs 41 crore from Rs 47 crore year ago, sources said.
Advance tax payment is a system of staggered payments of income taxes across the year done on a quarterly basis.
Typically, companies pay 15 per cent of their tax liabilities in the first quarter, which goes up as the financial year progresses.
The amount of taxes paid by a company is also a barometer of its performance for the period and how it sees the year turning up.
It can also serve as an evidence to establish the credentials of the economy, especially in times when there are question marks over recovery.
