According to persons familiar with the latest figures, the Centre's advance tax receipts up to the third quarter (April-December) of FY24 are up 19.8% year on year to 6.24 lakh crore, indicating a solid double-digit gain. The figures include payments made up to 11:30 p.m. on December 15, the deadline for paying advance tax for the third quarter.
"The final numbers may rise further on Monday as we receive additional data from the banks," a senior source told ET. The complete collection data will be made available next week.
According to the official referenced above, corporate tax accounted for 4.81 lakh crore of the total, while personal income tax contributed 1.42 lakh crore.
"High growth in advance tax collections suggests that economic growth momentum has continued in the early part of this quarter," Aditi Nayar, chief economist at rating agency ICRA, said.
The Centre has allocated 18.20 lakh crore in direct taxes for FY24, a 9.6% increase over the most recent estimate for FY23. In the previous fiscal year (FY23), the budget estimate (BE) for direct tax income was 14.2 lakh crore. It was later updated to 16.5 lakh crore and finished slightly higher at 16.61 lakh crore.
"We expect the direct tax collections to overshoot the budget estimates," he stated.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) boosted its FY24 GDP prediction to 7%, up from 6.5% previously, after the economy surprised to the upside, increasing 7.6% in the third quarter. The solid advance tax receipts show that business profits are strong.
