New Delhi, March 23: Despite the impact of demonetisation, Indian tax collections this fiscal will exceed budgetary estimates, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday.

Replying to the debate on the Finance Bill in the Lok Sabha, Jaitley referred to an opposition member's fears of lower tax collections and said the actual collections by the end of the fiscal would go past even the revised estimates.
 
"Tax collections have been on the increase in the last few years. We had set a direct and indirect tax collection of Rs 16.25 lakh crore for the current fiscal, which was revised upwards to Rs 17 lakh crore. We will achieve this record target by the end of whatever little remains of the fiscal," he said.
 
"The collection target for next year has been set at Rs 19,05,000 crore. Rs 9.8 lakh crore is estimated to come from direct taxes while Rs 9.25 lakh crore from indirect taxes," he added.
 
The minister said his optimism on taxes was based on the "transformation" of indirect taxes expected to be set in motion through the proposed pan-India Good and Services Tax (GST), which is slated to be implemented from July 1.
 
The Ministry also stated that Adhaar number will now be mandatory for filing tax returns in order to curb tax evasion and frauds. The move has been slammed by opposition parties such as the BJD. The Finance minister stressed on the importance of linking Adhaar cards with PAN cards as people could have multiple PAN cards and these could be used for tax evasion purposes.