Advance Tax snippets

Corporate earning indications from fourth-quarter advance tax payouts seem to be a mixed bag. Financial services such as banking and insurance have emerged as clear winners, but engineering and construction companies have been impacted by the spillover of the global financial crisis into the real economy. Those looking for the green shoots of recovery will be heartened by the growth in tax numbers from the FMCG and pharma sectors, which shows the country’s economic engine could be fuelled by domestic demand. India’s advance tax collection till March 15, the last date for the payout, stood at Rs 2.82 lakh crore. While this is way below the budgeted Rs 3.95 lakh crore for FY09, the income tax department hopes the figure would approximate the previous fiscal’s Rs 3.2 lakh crore by the fiscal end. This is not so bad after all, feel experts, given the significant slowdown in growth momentum from the second half of 2008. Advance tax figures for the January-March quarter of FY09, compared with the same quarter last year, show most banks have more tax outgo during the current quarter than the corresponding quarter last year. State Bank of India, the largest taxpayer in the country, registered a 41% growth in tax outgo at Rs 5,733 crore for the current fiscal. The bank paid Rs 1,810 crore in the fourth quarter, 27% higher than the corresponding quarter last year. Insurance major Life Insurance Corporation of India paid Rs 810 crore in the current quarter against Rs 657 crore a year ago. For the entire fiscal, it has paid Rs 2,988 crore against Rs 2,618 crore in FY08. Citibank’s tax outgo this quarter went up to Rs 1,010, while the corresponding figure last year was Rs 657 crore. The tax outgo for the full fiscal is Rs 1,710 against Rs 1,267 last fiscal. The advance tax collected from Mumbai, which accounts for 35-40% of the countrywide tax collections, was nearly Rs 99,000 crore until March 15. The Mumbai commissionerate was given a budgeted estimate of Rs 1,50,000 crore, which was later revised to Rs 1,33,000 crore. Tax authorities are hopeful that more taxes would be collected in a couple of days since March 15, the last day for the advance tax payment, was a Sunday.