In spite of the Centre collecting a whopping 74% more direct taxes so far this fiscal on an annualised basis at ₹ 5.70 lakh crore, it has also borrowed a massive 58 % of the budgeted amount during the same period by selling ₹ 7.02 lakh crore worth of debt securities in the market.
While at the weekly auction of government securities earlier in the day on Friday, it mopped up ₹ 31,000 crore in long-term and short-term debt at an average price of 6.15 %, later in the day, the revenue department said the net personal income tax and corporate tax collection jumped a full 74 % to ₹ 5.70 lakh crore so far this fiscal, driven mainly by advance tax and TDS payments.
The mop-up of net direct tax (after deducting refunds from gross collection) between April 1 and September 22 was ₹ 5,70,568 crore, a 74.4 % growth over ₹ 3.27 lakh crore collected in the same period last fiscal, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said in a statement.
What is more the net collection is a full 27 % more than the ₹ 4.48 lakh crore it had collected in FY20 — or the pre-pandemic period.
On top of that it has been collecting record amount of indirect taxes by way of GST (that has been topping a ₹ 1 lakh crore in almost every month) and record duties from petroleum products at ₹ 94,181 crore in the first quarter on the back of a record tax on fuel that yielded 88 % higher revenue than the previous financial year.
According to Care Ratings, today's weekly auction saw government borrowing of ₹ 31,000 crore by selling 5, 13, 14 and 30-year securities.
With this the total market borrowings so far this fiscal are ₹ 7.02 lakh crore, which is 8 % less than it had mopped up this time last fiscal when it was ₹ 7.66 lakh crore, and ₹ 12,652 crore less than the notified amount of the auctions so far.
Stated differently, the debt raised so far in FY22 is 58 % of the total budgeted borrowing limit of ₹ 12.05 lakh crore for the fiscal year and 52 % if the GST compensation to the states amounting to ₹ 1.58 lakh crore is added to the borrowing limit for the year, the report said.
The weighted average yield across tenures came down by 4 bps to 6.15 % over the previous week and 31 bps lower than the peak touched in early August when it was jumped to 6.46 % on August 6, the agency's chief economist Madan Sabnavis said.
It can be noted that the government collects ₹ 32.90 in excise duty in every litre of petrol which is selling at over ₹ 100 a litre for months and ₹ 31.80 on a litre of diesel since last April and had collected a whopping ₹ 3.35 lakh crore in FY21 when the total excise mop up was only ₹ 3.89 lakh crore, from ₹ 1.78 lakh crore in FY20. In FY19, excise duty on petrol and diesel were ₹ 2.13 lakh crore.
The CBDT said gross direct tax collection so far this fiscal stands at over ₹ 6.45 lakh crore, a full 47 % more than the ₹ 4.39 lakh crore mopped up in the same period last year and 16.75 % more than the same period in FY20 when it was ₹ 5.53 lakh crore.
Of the total mop-up ₹ 2.53 lakh crore is advance tax and tax deducted at source of ₹ 3.19 lakh crore. Self-assessment tax worth ₹ 41,739 crore, regular assessment tax of ₹ 25,558 crore, dividend distribution tax of ₹ 4,406 crore and tax under other minor heads of ₹ 1,383 crore totaled the mop-up to 74 % more than last year levels.
Advance tax collection so far this fiscal is ₹ 2,53,353 crore up 56 % from ₹ 1,62,037 crore a year ago. Advance tax collection comprises corporation tax of ₹ 1.96 lakh crore and personal income tax of ₹ 56,389 crore.