New Delhi:
In signs of the economy continuing to reflate, the government's tax collections have picked up and high-frequency activity indicators continue to improve on the back of the government's targeted Covid-19 stimulus, Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.
In an interview with PTI, Pandey said the generation of e-way bills, needed for transportation of goods, is back to pre-Covid levels and online payments have risen exponentially.
Collection of Goods and Services Tax (GST), levied when a product is consumed or a service is rendered, has risen for the second month in a row.
"The (tax collection) trend shows that it did decline for the past few months, but it is not only on the path of recovery but is also picking up. In the month of September, GST collection was 4 per cent higher than what was there in the corresponding period last year," Pandey said.
"In the month of October, it has risen by 10 per cent year-on-year with a collection of above Rs 1.05 trillion," he added.
Pandey said the generation of e-way bills, which is mandatory for transporting goods worth over Rs 50,000, has gone up 21 per cent in October, while the number of e-invoice generation has touched 2.9 million IRNs (Invoice Reference Numbers) a day.
"E-way bill and e-invoice coupled with better GST collections show that the economy was not only on path of recovery but also returning to the growth path and picking up steadily," Pandey, who is also the Revenue Secretary, said.
The gross direct tax collection in April-October period of the current fiscal stood at Rs 4.95 trillion, down 22 per cent over the same period last fiscal.
While corporate tax collection fell 26 per cent to Rs 2.65 trillion, personal income tax collection was 16 per cent lower at Rs 2.34 trillion.
GST collection in April-October period of the current fiscal stood at Rs 5.59 trillion, 20 per cent lower than the collection in the same period last fiscal.
Notwithstanding the dip in revenues, the government has issued Rs 1.27 trillion worth of income tax refunds and Rs 70,000 crore GST refunds so far this fiscal.
"In last 7 months, a total Rs 2 trillion refund was issued. This was during the time when our collection was less," Pandey said.
He said the focus on faceless assessment, third-party information gathering and sharing of data between various agencies has helped improve tax collection by making it difficult for people to evade taxes.
"So the tendency to take advantage of the information asymmetry and take risk of tax evasion would be much much lower," he said.
Pandey said the department is collecting third-party information like taxpayer's consumption pattern, bank statement, mutual fund and share transaction, property transaction, import, export and foreign remittances.
"The economic impact of pandemic would have been much more if our tax collection system had not improved. During the last year, we have taken measures like faceless assessment, faceless appeal, SFT (statement of financial transactions), restriction on cash withdrawal by imposing TDS (tax deducted at source).
"So the unscrupulous people who were evading taxes, now it has become harder for them. These would incentivise people to furnish correct tax information," he said.
The system analyzes the information asymmetry and issues red flags. So the risk premium is very high on tax evasion. We are sure that now the tendency to take risk of under-disclosure or non-disclosure of income would be much lower, Pandey added.
On economic stimulus package, he said the government's intervention in the form of stimulus has addressed the need of most deserving section of economy and society.
"We are continuously monitoring the ground situation and the government will come out with whatever measures needed. We have come out with assistance relating to cash, food, and have provided liquidity to MSMEs and issued tax refunds, deferred tax payments, etc," he said.
To promote domestic manufacturing in electronics, mobile, pharma and medical devices, the government is giving production linked incentives, Pandey said.
"Stimulus is not a one-time affair; it's not that one size fits all. It's time-to-time interventions with apt measures," he added.
The government had in May announced a Rs 20 trillion 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' stimulus package to boost the economy.
Last month, a Rs 73,000 crore package, including advance payment of a part of wages to central government employees and cash in lieu of leave travel concession (LTC), was announced to stimulate consumer demand and investment in the economy damaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
October gasoline, gasoil sales exceed pre-coronavirus levels
India’s gasoil consumption in October rose 6.6% from a year earlier, the first such increase since COVID-19 restrictions were imposed in late March, preliminary data showed on Sunday, signalling a pick-up in industrial activity.
Diesel sales by the country's three state fuel retailers totalled 6.17 million tonnes in October, according to provisional data compiled by Indian Oil Corp IOC.NS (IOC), the country's biggest refiner and fuel retailer.
Sales of gasoil, which account for about two-fifths of India’s fuel demand, rose 27.5% from September.
Rising diesel sales in the world’s third-biggest oil consumer and importer should help refiners, who had to cut crude-processing runs during the coronavirus crisis.
IOC hopes to operate refineries at full capacity in a couple of months, up from 95% now, as local fuel demand is rising, company chairman S.M. Vaidya said on Friday.Rising gasoline and gasoil demand in India should also aid other markets hit by slow demand recovery.
Power consumption grew 13.38 per cent
India's power consumption grew 13.38 per cent to 110.94 billion units (BU) in October this year, mainly driven by buoyancy in industrial and commercial activities, as per government data.
Electricity consumption in the country was recorded at 97.84 BU in October 2019, showed the power ministry data.
Experts earlier last month had exuded confidence that the power consumption would grow by double digits in October on the basis of the extrapolation of half-month data.
The power consumption had grown 11.45 per cent to 55.37 BU during October 1 to 15, against 49.67 BU, in the corresponding period a year ago.
Freight loading up by 15%, revenue by 9%
The Railways' freight loading and corresponding earnings in October were higher by 15 per cent and 9 per cent respectively than the numbers recorded during the same month last year, the national transporter said Sunday.
In October this year, the Indian Railways' loading was 108.16 million tonnes which is 15 per cent higher than last year's loading for the same period which was 93.75 million tonnes.
In this period Indian Railways earned Rs 10,405.12 crore from freight loading which is higher by Rs. 868.90 crore or 9 per cent in comparison to last year's earnings for the same period at Rs 9536.22 crore, it said.