Tax revenue collections in FY23 likely to be far better than budget estimates: Revenue Secretary
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Expressing optimism over government’s tax collection, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj has said tax revenue collections in ongoing fiscal year (FY23) are expected to be far better than the budget estimates. Last fiscal year, indirect taxes grew at 20 per cent and direct taxes at 49 per cent. The tax-to-GDP ratio in 2021-22 jumped to 11.7 per cent - the highest since 1999. In 2020-21, the ratio was 10.3 per cent. The country’s tax collections soared to a record high of Rs 27.07 lakh crore last year, compared to budget estimate of Rs 22.17 lakh crore.
Bajaj said the government was able to collect Rs 5 lakh crore more in taxes than what was anticipated in the budget estimates for 2021-22. He said ‘while we are starting the new financial year and are in the month of June, I would need another one month to be sure as to how we are going ahead with the revenue figures’. ‘But whatever indicators I have at the moment, I feel very optimistic, and think this year again, we will be able to do far better than we thought initially when we were making the budget as to how we will do’. He added that this is in spite of the fact that there have been some concessions on the customs duty, more so on the excise duty on the indirect taxes.
On the Goods and Services Tax (GST) front, he said there has been a healthy growth of revenues. He said ‘I am very hopeful that in the current year, the average revenues would be close to between Rs 1.40-1.50 lakh crore for the year as a whole as far as GST is concerned’. He noted that even on the direct taxes front, the initial indicators are good and there should be a healthy growth of tax revenues out there also.
On the economy, he said currently, the country is facing some challenges on inflation, rising current account deficit, fiscal deficit and currency valuation. He said ‘I think at this point of time, in our desire to control inflation both RBI and the government have taken a few steps and I hope these steps will bear fruit, and we will be able to see stability in our macro indicators in the times to come’.
