Advance tax mop-up nails slowdown fears; SBI pays Rs 1,100 cr

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Notwithstanding a massive fall in factory output growth rate in April, advance tax pay-up by India Inc for the first quarter of the fiscal has increased, led by SBI with its Rs 1,100 crore against Rs 850 crore in the year-ago period, easing concerns of economic slowdown.

Income Tax Department sources said today that oil and gas major RIL has paid Rs 900 crore in the April-June, 2011 period, up nearly 50 per cent from Rs 650 crore in the same quarter previous fiscal.

Companies from across the sectors paid up more in advance tax this quarter than the year-ago period, except cement companies, which had a poor showing.

The third in the list is the insurance giant LIC, which made an advance tax payment of Rs 580 crore in the quarter, against Rs 530 crore last fiscal.

Largest software exporter TCS saw its tax bill nearly doubling to Rs 240 crore in the reporting period from Rs 128 crore in the year-ago quarter.

The fourth in the list is the state-run Deposit Insurance & Credit Guarantee Corporation, which saw an outgo of Rs 475 crore against Rs 400 crore last time.

Banks, too, barring a few state-run ones, have paid up more. Leading foreign lender Citibank saw its advance tax outgo jumping 50 per cent to Rs 150 crore from Rs 100 crore, state-run IDBI Bank saw the tax bill soaring over 125 per cent to Rs 180 crore as against Rs 81 crore in the first quarter last year.

The second largest foreign bank HSBC, too, paid up more, with a tax outgo of Rs 250 crore against Rs 225 crore an year ago.

State-run lenders like Bank of India paid Rs 165 crore against Rs 158 crore, Bank of Baroda doled out Rs 250 crore as against Rs 225 crore, Dena Bank around Rs 55 crore against Rs 45 crore, while Central Bank of India saw its advance tax payout declining to Rs 145 crore against Rs 150 crore.

All the private sector lenders have paid up more in taxes this time. While the largest private sector lender ICICI Bank paid Rs 390 crore against Rs 350 crore an year ago, the immediate competition HDFC Bank coughed up Rs 350 crore as compared to Rs 315 crore in the corresponding period an year ago.

Kotak Mahindra Bank's advance tax outgo stood at Rs 60 crore as against Rs 45 crore and YES Bank paid Rs 60 crore, against Rs 50 crore.

Pure-play mortgage lender HDFC saw its tax bill rising to Rs 250 crore from Rs 215 crore in the reporting period and so did LIC Housing Finance, which saw its tax bill rising to Rs 47 crore in the reporting quarter from Rs 38 crore.

Among auto companies, barring the largest player Tata Motors, which saw its tax bill dipping a tad bit to Rs 62 crore from Rs 65 crore, all reported higher numbers. Bajaj Auto paid Rs 125 crore from Rs 110 crore, M&M paid nearly 50 per cent more at Rs 90 crore from Rs 63 crore.

Steel major Tata Steel also saw its tax bill shrinking during the reporting quarter to Rs 280 crore from Rs 300 crore, so did another group company Tata Chemicals, which paid up only Rs 27 crore against Rs 29 crore.

Aluminium major Hindalco's tax bill rose to Rs 80 crore against Rs 55 crore. So did the engineering behemoth L&T, which coughed up Rs 175 crore in advance taxes, up from Rs 130 crore. Similarly, consumer goods leader HUL, too, saw its tax bill jumping to Rs 100 crore from Rs 75 crore.

Oil companies presented a mixed picture with Bharat Petroleum paying a little more than half of what it had paid last time at Rs 77 crore, against Rs 126 crore; while both Hindustan Petroleum and MRPL paid up more at Rs 62 crore from Rs 61 crore and Rs 100 crore from Rs 67 crore, respectively.

Cement players saw their tax outgo shrinking. ACC saw its tax bill declining to Rs 45 crore from Rs 50 crore, Ambuja too paid up less at Rs 50 crore (Rs 65 crore), while UltraTech bucked the trend with a sharp spike in its tax bill at Rs 37 crore against Rs 22 crore.

Pharma major Lupin paid Rs 18 crore (Rs 16 crore), AC major Voltas paid more at Rs 23 crore (Rs 18 crore) and the tobacco leader Godfrey Phillips saw its tax bill exactly doubling to Rs 12 crore from Rs 6 crore.