FM urges tax officials to meet revenue target

Buoyed by improved customs duty collections in December, Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday asked the revenue officials to shore up realisation in the remaining months with a view to exceed the revised projections.

"While revised estimates have been lowered than Budget Estimates, but going by the trend I urge you to do better than the revised estimates and show what you are capable of," he said while addressing the Customs Day in New Delhi.

Finance secretary Sumit Bose later told reporters that the customs duty collection grew 6.7 per cent in December.

The government had set a budgetary target of over Rs 1.87 lakh crore for collection from customs duty in current fiscal, a growth of 14 per cent over last fiscal.

The Finance Ministry is in the process of working the Revised Estimates of budgeted figures for the current fiscal. This would be presented in Parliament through a Vote on Account on February 17.

Customs, Excise and Service tax forms the indirect tax kitty of the exchequer. The government had budgeted indirect tax collection at over Rs 5.65 lakh crore for 2013-14, up 20 per cent.

"It has been a satisfying year. I am happy that the customs revenue have shown a higher growth rate in the month of December, a little more than we had anticipated in the revised estimates. I am tempted to raise the revised estimate but I will not do so," Chidambaram said.

In 2012-13, indirect tax collections were revised lower by 7 per cent to Rs 4.70 lakh crore. Customs mop-up was revised down by 11.7 per cent to Rs 1.65 lakh crore in the same year.

Chidambaram also said that service tax collections in the coming years will exceed customs and excise mop-up as Goods and Services Tax (GST) gets implemented.