Maharashtra accounted for 37 per cent of all direct taxes collected in the country in the 2016-17 fiscal, according to data released by the Income-Tax department. The state, which is home to the financial capital of Mumbai, accounted for Rs 3.14 lakh crore of direct taxes collected in the last financial year. Direct taxes refer to income tax, corporation tax, wealth tax and securities transaction tax among others. Mumbai is the headquarters of many corporates and also the country’s largest stock exchanges. Therefore, it is to be expected that Maharashtra would pay the maximum direct taxes among the states. Maharashtra is followed by Delhi that paid Rs 1.08 lakh crore in direct taxes. Karnataka (Rs 85,920 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 60,077 crore) and Gujarat (Rs 38,808 crore) rounded off the top five states. Maharashtra, however, recorded lower growth in tax collections than the national average. Direct tax collected in the state grew 9.43 per cent from a year earlier, compared to 14.57 per cent on an all-India basis. Growth was faster in the smaller states because of a lower base. Nagaland, for instance, saw taxes collected grow 298 per cent to Rs 160 crore. Similarly, Mizoram, saw taxes rise 117 per cent to Rs 111.7 crore. In general, the spread of direct tax collection is increasing across states and that can be seen from the fact that the top five states are accounting for a smaller proportion of tax collected. They made up 71.6 per cent of all-India direct taxes in 2016-17 compared to 73.4 per cent in 2009-10. While all-India direct taxes grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 12.3 per cent in these years, Maharashtra’s growth was slightly lower at 11.6 per cent.
