Dismissing concerns of slowdown due to demonetization, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said both direct and indirect tax collections have shown robust increase during the April-December period, indicating uptick in economic activity including manufacturing. He said direct tax collection was up 12.01% at Rs 5.53 lakh crore in April-December 2016 as compared to revenue in the year-ago period, while indirect tax receipts soared 25% to Rs 6.30 lakh crore. Indirect tax collection in December was up 14.2% year-on-year, he said. "Tax collection data is real and not an estimation," Jaitley said, while dismissing apprehensions of slowdown in following currency squeeze post demonetization. When compared with tax collections in November, indirect tax receipts in December 2016 were up 12.8%, he said.

Source: dna January 09, 2017 11:43 UTC