Q3 Advance Tax collection flat

Q3 Advance Tax collection flat

The advance taxes collection for the third quarter from India Inc. were more or less flat, suggesting that the slowdown is impacting their bottom-line. This also rendered the targeted tax collection set by the government for March 31, 2012 a difficult target to achieve.

While ONGC paid the highest advance tax for Q3 it was IT major TCS which saw the maximum hike in its advance tax payout for December 2011. The usual major tax payers like RIL, State Bank of India SBI, Tata Motors and M&M among others, made lower payments this time around.

Advance taxes from the FMCG sector were very encouraging with HUL, ITC and Godrej Consumer posting a healthy growth in their respective outgo. Ditto was the situation with the cement sector where Ambuja and ACC saw a magnificent rise in their advance tax payments.

Amongst the banking pack, while HDFC bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra bank and YES bank did well, others like SBI, Dena bank,
Central bank, Union bank and Bank of India disappointed on the advance tax front. It seems that the PSU banks may face some pressure in the coming quarters. ICICI bank saw its advance tax outgo remain unchanged. The Pharma companies also seem to have fared well, judging by the initial tax outgoes reported by Cipla, Pfizer and Novartis.

Among the initial auto numbers, Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto have done well indicating a good run for the two wheelers. On the other hand disappointment shown by M&M and Tata Motors tax outflow has thrown up some concerns in the 4-wheeler segments. In fact Tata Motors saw its advance tax outgo dip sharply by 93 per cent to Rs 80 crore on a YoY basis.

The lists of companies that have made no advance tax payout this quarter include the state-run oil marketers such as Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.