Centre collects Rs 1.01L cr from excise, Rs 2.41L cr from I-T in Q1

New Delhi: The government has collected over Rs 1.01 lakh crore in excise duty in April-June period, while direct tax collection stood at over Rs 2.41 lakh crore, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.

Giving details of tax collected, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in Lok Sabha said Rs 41,831 crore was collected from Customs duty and Rs 1,01,564 crore from excise duty. In 2020-21, the mop-up from Customs duty and excise was Rs 1.34 lakh crore and over Rs 3.89 lakh crore.

The government last year hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel which led to an increase in excise collections.

Giving details of direct tax collection, Chaudhary said in the first three months (April-June) of the current fiscal year, nearly Rs 1.21 lakh crore and over Rs 1.20 lakh crore was collected as corporate tax and personal income tax (PIT) , respectively.

An amount of Rs 5,373 crore was collected as Securities Transaction Tax (STT).

In the last fiscal year, the mop-up from corporate tax was over Rs 4.57 lakh crore, PIT over Rs 4.71 lakh crore and STT Rs 16,927 crore. The net Central GST collection till June stood at over Rs 1.17 lakh crore and compensation cess collection was Rs 24,636 crore.

Meanwhile, The Union government has collected Rs 94,181 crore through levy of excise duty on petrol and diesel in the first three months of the current fiscal on the back of a record tax on fuel that yielded 88 per cent higher revenue the previous financial year, the Lok Sabha was informed on Monday.

Excise duty on petrol was hiked from Rs 19.98 per litre to Rs 32.9 last year to recoup gain arising from international oil prices plunging to multi-year low as pandemic gulped demand.

The same on diesel was raised to Rs 31.8 from Rs 15.83 a litre, according to a written reply by Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli in the Lok Sabha.

This led to excise collections on petrol and diesel jumping to Rs 3.35 lakh crore in 2020-21 (April 2020 to March 2021), from Rs 1.78 lakh crore a year back, he said.

Collections would have been higher but for fuel sales falling due to lockdown and other restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which muted economic activity and stalled mobility.

In the current fiscal starting April, where fuel sales were higher than the previous year, the collections have gone up.

"The total central excise duty collected on petrol and diesel from April to June 2021 (first quarter of FY22) is about Rs 94,181 crore," Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Choudhary said in reply to a separate question. In 2018-19, excise collections on petrol and diesel were Rs 2.13 lakh crore.

Together with excise on other petro products such as ATF and natural gas, the total excise collections in April-June this year stood at Rs 1.01 lakh crore.

The total excise collection in FY21 was Rs 3.89 lakh crore.

Choudhary said the average share of central excise duty on petroleum products in gross revenue collected by the Union government is 12 per cent.

"Prices of petrol and diesel are market-determined with effect from June 26, 2010, and October 19, 2014, respectively," Teli said.

Since then, the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) have been taking appropriate decisions on the pricing of petrol and diesel on the basis of international product prices and other market conditions.