Direct tax collections continue to witness negative growth

Direct tax collections from April 2019 to Feb 03, 2020, are at Rs 7.40 lakh crore versus the revised budget estimates of Rs 11.70 lakh crore.

The revision in the estimate was made after making a "realistic assessment" of various economic factors, according to North Block officials.

The government recently reduced the corporate tax rate for new companies in the manufacturing sector to 15 percent and for the existing

companies, the rate has been brought down to 22 percent.

Currently, there are 4,83,000 direct tax cases pending in various appellate forums according to the Finance Minister's budget speech on February 01, 2020. To resolve this and thus boost the overall collections, the government has proposed that taxpayers should pay only the amount of the disputed taxes and there will be a waiver of interest and penalty provided they make payment by March 31, 2020.

A direct tax, as the name suggests,  is paid directly by an individual or organisation to the government. Direct taxes include income tax, property tax, corporate tax, etc.