India's highest advance-tax payers in Q3

Advance tax payouts by leading Indian corporates mostly remained flat in the third quarter, suggesting that the slowdown is impacting their bottomlines.

While the advance tax payment by LIC and Bank of Baroda has shown an improvement, L&T and General Insurance Corporation paid nearly the same amount as in the corresponding quarter last year.

Advance tax payment is a clear reflection of the health of a company in particular and the economy in general and a lower payout indicates their lower profitability.

Companies pay advance taxes in four installments. In the current quarter, they are bound to pay up 30 per cent of their annual tax liability.

The largest financial institution, LIC, led the list of companies that paid up their advance tax this morning, with a spike in the amount to Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) from Rs 1,070 crore (Rs 10.70 billion) a year ago, a senior income tax official said in New Delhi on Thursday.

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However, the largest engineering and construction conglomerate L&T's payout was almost flat at Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.50 billion), versus Rs 340 crore (Rs 3.40 billion), while the third largest state-run lender, Bank of Baroda, saw its tax payout jump to Rs 550 crore (Rs 5.50 billion) from Rs 420 crore (Rs 4.20 billion).

General Insurance Corporation, too, saw its tax liability go up marginally to Rs 135 crore (Rs 1.35 billion) for the third quarter from Rs 130 crore (Rs 1.30 billion) in the year-ago period.

According to the initial list, industry leaders like Reliance, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, TCS, Infosys, SBI, ICICI, HDFC and Mahindra & Mahindra are yet to make the payment, said the IT official, who requested not to be quoted.

Pharma major Pfizer paid higher advance tax of Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) for the third quarter this fiscal, as against Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.50 billion) last year, and Novartis also paid more tax, at Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) versus Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.80 billion).

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However, Glaxo arm Glaxo India reported a lower advance tax payout of Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million) for Q3, FY'12, as against Rs 90 crore (Rs 900 million) in the corresponding year-ago period.

The list of companies that have made no advance tax payout is led by state-run oil marketers such as Indian Oil, which is the nation's largest corporation by revenue, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.

The IT official said oil companies normally do not pay advance taxes in the initial quarters, but in the last quarter, when the government pays them the subsidy compensation.

Central Bank of India saw its advance tax payment nosedive to Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) from Rs 170 crore (Rs 1.70 billion) and so did Dena Bank, which paid only Rs 60 crore (Rs 600 million) for Q3, FY'12, as against Rs 70 crore (Rs 700 million) in the corresponding period last year.

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LIC Housing Finance fared comparatively better, with payment of Rs 90 crore this year, as against Rs 75 crore (Rs 750 million) last year.

Significantly, despite the sharp slowdown in the manufacturing space, companies paid more taxes in this sector.

For instance, Tata Chemicals paid Rs 70 crore in comparison to Rs 60 crore last year and Tata Power paid Rs 80 crore as against Rs 60 crore, while Pidlite Industries -- which manufactures and markets popular adhesive brand Fevicol -- has paid Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million) for Q3 this year, compared to Rs 27 crore (Rs 270 million) last year.

Alok Industries paid a tad less advance tax, at Rs 32 crore (Rs 320 million), as against Rs 35 crore (Rs 350 million) last year.