Advance Tax Payments by Mumbai Firms Edge Higher
Advance corporate tax paid by India’s top Mumbai-based companies for Q3 of 2012-13 indicate a marginal rise in tax paid for the period. Companies pay advance tax in four instalments towards the end of each financial quarter in India, and the quantum of payment reflects their assessment of profitability over that period.
According to figures from Indian income-tax officials, among public sector banks, State Bank of India (SBI) paid slightly lower advance tax at 1,701 crore rupees [a crore equalling 10m rupees (INR)] for the quarter, against INR1,730 crore in the same period last year. Bank of Baroda paid INR550 crore (versus INR525 crore), Central Bank of India INR120 crore (vs INR104 crore) and Union Bank of India (UBI) INR341 crore (vs INR221 crore).
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) paid INR1,297 crore (vs INR1,166 crore) while engineering and construction multinational Larsen & Toubro (L&T) paid 5% lower tax of INR330 crore (vs INR350 crore).
Among housing finance companies, HDFC paid 18% higher advance tax of INR560 crore (vs INR475 crore) while LIC Housing Finance paid INR113 crore (vs INR91 crore).
Among the large corporates, Reliance Industries paid 10% higher advance tax of INR1,100 crore. From the conglomerate Tata Group, Tata Motors paid nil (vs INR60 crore), Tata Steel paid less than half of last year’s figure at INR520 crore (vs INR1,090 crore) and Tata Chemicals INR70 crore (vs INR72 crore). However, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) paid higher tax at INR620 crore (vs INR530 crore), according to officials.
Among cement producers, Aditya Birla-owned UltraTech Cement paid INR250 crore (vs INR200 crore), Holcim-owned ACC and Ambuja Cement paid INR112 crore (vs INR95 crore) and INR50 crore (vs INR113 crore) respectively.
As India’s commercial capital, Mumbai accounts for around a third of the country’s direct tax collections. The Income-tax Department’s target for Mumbai for 2012-13 is INR1.78 lakh-crore, a 13.5% rise over the previous year.