RIL AGM: RIL's Corporate Tax Payment Fell Sharply In FY21

Reliance Industries Ltd.'s corporate tax payment in 2020-21—a year marred by the Covid-19 pandemic—fell by more than half, according to Chairman Mukesh Ambani's annual address to shareholders.

Ambani usually spends the early part of his AGM speech outlining his company's contribution to the Indian economy as evidence of its size.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate paid Rs 3,213 crore as corporate tax in FY21, Ambani said in his speech at the 44th annual general meeting. That's a 61.6% decline over the previous financial year.

RIL's consolidated revenue during the year fell 18.3% to Rs 5.39 lakh crore. However, its annual profit rose 34.8% to Rs 53,739 crore.

In fact, RIL's corporate tax contributions have never been this low since at least FY15—when Ambani first started spelling out the amount his firm paid that particular year. The amount paid in FY21 is also 66% lower than the average of the past five financial years.

To be clear, in 2019 the union government lowered corporate tax rates for existing and new companies.

That said, RIL's contributions by way of indirect taxes continued to rise.

The company paid a total of Rs 85,046 crore as goods and services tax and value added tax in FY21—an increase of 22.5% over the previous financial year. It's customs and excise duty payment remained largely flat at Rs 21,044 crore.