Advance tax payout of 100 firms up 14%

Notwithstanding the drop in the growth of factory output in April, advance tax payment by top 100 corporates headquartered in the financial capital have jumped 14 per cent for the June quarter on good collections from the banking and finance sector.

India's largest lender SBI paid Rs 1,100 crore as compared to Rs 850 crore last year, while private sector behemoth Reliance Industries' advance tax payment jumped to Rs 900 crore from last year's Rs 650 crore, an Income Tax Department source said.

The Kumarmangalam Birla-led Hindalco (Rs 80 crore versus Rs 55 crore) also reported a rise, the source said.

"A majority of corporates have done well and growth at 14 per cent is quite satisfactory. Barring TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), all the other Tata Group companies have shown a decline, while sectors like cement, oil and gas continue to show a slowdown," Chief Commissioner of Income Tax P P Srivastava said.

He, however, declined to give the total advance tax collection from the top-100 corporates in absolute terms.

According to I-T sources, TCS paid Rs 250 crore in advance tax as compared to the year before's Rs 128 crore, while other Group companies like Tata Steel (Rs 260 crore in 2011 versus last year's Rs 300 crore), Tata Motors (Rs 65 crore versus Rs 62 crore) and Tata Chemicals (Rs 27 crore versus Rs 29 crore) showed a drop.

Advance tax payments are considered as the barometer for a company's performance for the reporting quarter. The jump in tax collections comes after the IIP growth in April slowed to 6.3 per cent amid a rising interest rate scenario.