The latest advance corporate tax figures paid by the top 100 companies show that only six private sector companies figure among the top 20 tax payers and only two among the top ten.
According to the figures available with the Central Board of Direct Taxes, it is however the massive Rs 2,207 crore (Rs 22.07 billion) of third instalment of advance tax paid by ONGC that has beefed up the total kitty of the department for direct taxes.
The corporation has paid Rs 4,285 crore (Rs 42.85 billion) to the government in this fiscal accounting for 27 per cent of the total advance corporate tax in this fiscal between April and December of Rs 15,660 crore (Rs 156.6 billion).
State Bank of India ranks a distant second at Rs 414 crore (Rs 4.14 billion) of tax paid in the third instalment of advance tax.
It has paid Rs 1,041 crore (Rs 10.41 billion) of advance tax in 2002-03. Among the private sector companies, ITC comes in at third position with Rs 290 crore (Rs 2.9 billion) tax paid in December and Rs 585 crore (Rs 5.85 billion) paid overall for this fiscal, Hindustan Lever at ninth with Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) and 336 crore (Rs 3.36 billion), Standard Chartered at fifteenth with Rs 121 crore (Rs 1.21 billion) and Rs 237 crore (Rs 2.37 billion), VSNL at seventeenth position, Hero Honda Motors at nineteenth and SECL Bilaspur at twentieth position.
The company wise ranking which indicates the relative performance of the different sectors of the economy, shows that power and telecom sectors are not doing well.
NTPC has slipped to sixth position from number two in last fiscal. It has paid Rs 245 crore (Rs 2.45 billion) only as advance tax compared to Rs 567 crore (Rs 5.67 billion) in December 2001-02.
Similarly, both MTNL and VSNL have paid less tax compared to last year. The former paid only Rs 126 crore (Rs 1.26 billion) compared to Rs 186 crore (Rs 1.86 billion) in the previous year while the latter has paid even less tax of Rs 115 crore (Rs 1.15 billion) against Rs 185 crore (Rs 1.85 billion).
Among the heavy weights of India Inc, Tisco comes at 23rd position with Rs 92 crore. It is a sharp reflection of the improving fortunes in the steel industry, as it had paid only Rs 11 crore in the first two instalments due in June and September.
Reliance Industries has paid Rs 60 crore as third instalment while it has paid Rs 147 crore (Rs 1.47 billion) overall till December. In the last fiscal, the company had paid Rs 55 crore in the corresponding period.
The list of top 100 companies is dominated by banking and petroleum companies. The oil companies all figure within the top fifty, with HPCL at ninth position, BPCL at 28th and surprisingly IOC at 41st position.