The Income Tax Department has mopped up over half the kitty of the targeted direct tax revenue for this fiscal — at more than Rs 6.63 lakh crore — riding at a record “high growth rate of last seven years” that was also propelled by demonetisation, a latest report of the CBDT has said.

The report of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy-making body for the I-T Department, on the “impact of demonetisation” states that the 2016 exercise of invalidating the two high-value currencies of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 has “thrown up a large tranche of data and credible information based on which enforcement actions, including search and survey, are being conducted by the tax department with great degree of success against tax evaders”.

The report said the department has till now (updated till November 15) made a gross collection of Rs 6.63 lakh crore in the direct taxes kitty this fiscal, which is 16.4 per cent higher than the gross collections for the corresponding period of last year. This, the report said, was a “positive impact of demonetisation.”

The direct taxes revenue collection target for the 2018-19 financial year is Rs 11.5 lakh crore and the taxman is left with four months to achieve the target by the closing of the fiscal on March 31 next year.

The report added that there has been a “sustained increase in the number of income tax returns (ITRs) filed in the last four financial years as compared to 3.79 crore ITRs filed in 2013-14 fiscal and the number of ITRs filed during 2017-18 fiscal has increased by 81 per cent to 6.87 crore”.