The government's tax collections were up in December 2016 bucking any impact of demonetisation with excise duty, levied at factory gate on goods, showing a growth of 31% .Direct taxes grow by 12.01% and indirect taxes grow by 25% over the corresponding period last year April-December 2015, according to data released by the finance ministry on Monday.Giving out the data, finance minister Arun Jaitley said: "Big picture is direct taxes are up for first three quarters and indirect taxes are up significantly".He said this tax data is real data and not estimation and a growth of 31% in excise showed that manufacturing remained robust. Advance tax collections in December quarter stand at Rs 2.82 lakh crore, which is 14.4% higher than the figures for the corresponding period of last year. Corporate advance tax grew by 10.6% while personal income tax advance tax registered a growth of 38.2%. Indirect tax collections (Central Excise, Service Tax and Customs) up to December 2016 showed a growth of 25% at Rs 6.30 lakh crore.Central excise collections stood at Rs 2.79 lakh crore during April-December, 2016 as compared to Rs 1.95 lakh crore during the corresponding period in the previous financial Year, registering a growth of 43%. Service tax during April-December, 2016 stood at Rs 1.83 lakh crore as compared to Rs 1.48 lakh crore during the corresponding period in the previous financial year, thereby registering a growth of 23.9%.Customs collections during April-December 2016 stood at Rs 1.67 lakh crore as compared to Rs 1.60 lakh crore during the same period in the previous Financial Year, thereby registering a growth of 4.1%. During December 2016, the net indirect tax grew at the rate of 14.2% compared to corresponding month last year.The growth rate in net collection for customs, central excise and service tax was -6.3%, 31.6% and 12.4% respectively during the month of December, 2016, compared to the corresponding month last year.The de-growth in customs collections is largely on account of a decline of gold imports by about 46% (in volume terms) in December 2016 over December 2015, a statement said.