Despite a slower pace of tax refunds, the growth in collection was much below the budgeted 12.7% increase for the entire 2025-26. With less than three months left in this fiscal, experts are cautiously optimistic about meeting the budget target of ₹25.20 lakh crore.
The collection included net corporate tax collection of ₹8.63 lakh crore, and collection of non-corporates-including individuals and Hindu undivided families-amounted to ₹9.30 lakh crore between April 1, 2025, and January 11 this year. Securities transaction tax (STT) collection came in at ₹44,867 crore. The budget projected STT collection of ₹78,000 crore for this fiscal.
Net refunds issued stood at ₹3.11 lakh crore, about 17% lower than ₹3.75 lakh crore issued in the year-ago period.
“A 9% net collection growth is encouraging and seems to indicate that the government may be on track to achieve the year-end target However, it is on the back of significantly lower refunds being released to both corporate and individual taxpayers,” said Rohinton Sidhwa, partner, Deloitte India. “Exact details of why the trends on refunds diverging significantly from previous year are not very apparent.”
On a gross basis, direct tax collection increased 4.14% year-on-year to about ₹21.50 lakh crore till January 11.