Personal income tax: Mumbai first, Bengaluru in second spot in April-July

There is buoyancy in direct taxes in the country in the current financial year despite the widespread restrictions in most states on account of the second wave of the Covid-19 infection. According to the provisional income tax data, the amount of personal income tax collected in the April-July period of this year stood at Rs 1.53 lakh crore.

Two things stand out. One, the amount is higher than the corporate tax collected during the same period which stands at Rs 1.44 lakh crore. Two, the Mumbai circle stood head and shoulders above other circles in income tax collection.

The last in the pecking order was the Guwahati circle. Mumbai’s collection was 43 times higher than that of Guwahati.

Mumbai on top

Like every year Mumbai circle topped the chart with the maximum collection for the first four-month period. According to the provisional data Mumbai circle’s collection stood at Rs 41,874 crore, which is almost 28% of the country’s total collection of Rs 1.53 lakh crore.

The country is divided into 18 different circles, each led by a chief commissioner of income tax.

Like personal income tax, the corporate tax collection of Mumbai circle was also the highest in the country. In the four-month period, corporate tax collection was almost Rs 50,972.4 crore, 35.28% of that of the pan-India figure.

Bangalore, Delhi

Bangalore and Delhi came after Mumbai in the collection list. The collection of these two CCITs stood at Rs 21,897 crore and Rs 18,643 crore respectively. While Bangalore contributed almost 14.3% of the nationwide collection, Delhi circle accounted for 12.15% of the figure.

But the collection of Mumbai was about 10% more than the combined amount of second and third circles. Pune and Hyderabad circles were above Rs 10,000 crore mark.

Personal income tax collection of Pune stood at Rs 10,854 crore and Rs 10,457 crore was mentioned against Hyderabad.

Those above Rs 1,000 crore

Besides the top five, there were 12 more circles the collections of which crossed Rs 1,000 crore in the four-month period. Only one CCIT had a collection of less than Rs 1,000 crore.

Among the sub-Rs 10,000-crore category, Chennai came first with a collection of Rs 9,520 crore, followed by Ahmedabad and Chandigarh that recorded collections of Rs 7,579 crore and Rs 7,985 crore respectively.

Next came Kolkata with a collection of Rs 4,921 crore. Bhopal and Kanpur collected Rs 3,141 crore and Rs 3,084 crore respectively in the same time period.

Jaipur, Lucknow and Patna collected more than Rs 2,000 crore each. Jaipur had a figure of Rs 2,813 crore, Lucknow Rs 2,541 crore and Patna Rs 2,234 crore.

Kochi, Bhubaneswar and Nagpur secured the next spots with a collection figure of Rs 1,982 crore, Rs 1,536 crore and Rs 1,360 crore respectively.

Guwahati last

Like corporate income tax, Guwahati ranked at the bottom of the heap in the personal income tax segment too. The collection of this north-eastern circle stood at Rs 974 crore, which is only 0.63% of the total income tax bucket for the first four-month of the current fiscal year.

6 crore IT filers

Income tax returns filed in the fiscal year 2019-20 went up by about 5% to nearly 6 crores as more businesses and entities filed annual income statements in the past year.

Almost 5.96 crore income tax returns for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, were filed, the Income Tax department said. The number of ITRs filed in the two previous assessment years was about 5.67 crore.