A robust 45 per cent growth in personal Income-Tax has covered up for the negative growth recorded by corporate tax receipts of the Centre till the end of May.

Latest tax figures for the first two months of the current fiscal shows that net Direct Tax receipts have reached Rs 1,630.49 crore (Rs 16.3 billion). Because of refunds, there has been a net outgo on Corporate Tax account, which has dipped to Rs 3,812.48 crore (Rs 38.21 billion).

This is, however, as per the trend seen in last fiscal also at the same time when there was a net outgo of Rs 3,653.75 crore (Rs 36.54 billion) on this head. In percentage terms there has been a dip of 4.34 for the tax from India Inc.

Personal income tax has touched Rs 5,442.92 crore (Rs 54.43 billion). This is 45.23 per cent more than the figure recorded in May 2003-04 of Rs 3,747.75 crore (Rs 37.48 billion).

The figures of tax collections for this period have become crucial as finance minister P Chidambaram is due to present his General Budget in July based on these estimates. Direct Tax, especially Corporate Tax has shown a very healthy rate of growth.

However, officials said since the companies pay their first installment of 15 per cent of their advance corporate tax for the fiscal year by June 15, the actual trends in this tax will become evident only thereafter.'

The healthy trend in direct tax collection is reflected in the fact that the aggregate net tax receipts, which was Rs 94 crore (Rs 940 million) only in 2003-04 was now 1634.56 per cent higher.

The Budget estimate for Direct Tax collection for this year is Rs 1,26,000 crore (Rs 1,260 billion). Of this income tax has already covered 11.8 per cent of the ground, while the target for corporate tax is at minus 4.8 per cent of the target.