Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Oct 10: Growth in collection of indirect taxes in the first half of the current fiscal shows robust GDP expansion, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian has said. “Indirect tax growth: 35.8 per cent. And 11.5 per cent
without new measures. Latter shows tax base-nominal GDP-growth robust,” Subramanian tweeted. Indirect tax collection increased 35.8 per cent in the April-September period of the 2015-16 fiscal to Rs 3.24 lakh crore, hitting more than 50 per cent of the annual target.
The collection also reflects hike in excise duty on diesel and petrol, withdrawal of tax exemptions for motor vehicles, increase in clean energy cess and hike in service tax rate in June. The government has budgeted to collect over Rs 6.47 lakh crore from indirect taxes in the current fiscal, a growth of 18.8 per cent over last fiscal.
CAD down to 1.3 pc of GDP: Jaitley
Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Saturday said the country’s current account deficit has come down substantially to around 1.3 per cent of GDP in 2014-15, as against around 4.8 per cent two years earlier. Besides, he said while the country was suffering from double-digit inflation then, this has dipped to a low of 3.7 per cent, an official statement said. In his lead intervention in the plenary session of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) International Monetary and Finance Committee Friday, he said India is utilizing the regime of lower oil and commodity prices to increase investments in infrastructure and irrigation as well as to undertake comprehensive subsidy rationalisation and successfully roll out the world’s largest financial inclusion initiative under which around 185 million bank accounts have been opened.
