For the first in the history of India, Income Tax records of Indians have been made public. Central Board of Direct Taxes and Department of Revenues under Ministry of Finance revealed Income Tax data between 2000-01 to 2014-15 last week; and the information may be unsettling and shocking for some.
This data is based on internal reporting of IT Dept., and it also includes the data of PAN Allotment Statistics based for the year 2013-14 and Income Tax Return Statistics for Assessment Year 2012-13.
While releasing this data, Meenakshi J Goswami, Commissioner of Income Tax, Media and Technical Policy and Official Spokesperson, CBDT said, “The objective of publishing this statistics is to encourage wider use and analysis of Income tax data by Departmental personnel as well as various stakeholders including economists, scholars, students, researchers and academicians for purposes of tax policy formulation and revenue forecasting.”
13 Shocking Details from this database of Income Tax in India:
– Only 1% of Indians paid tax between during 2011-12. For the financial year ended on March 31, 2012, total of 2.87 crore Indians paid tax and 1.62 crore Indians who paid tax previous year didn’t pay any tax. This means, on an average, only 1.23 crore paid tax for that year.
– In 2015-16, 4% of Indians paid tax, which is 5.1 crore people; Direct Taxes constitute 51% of all tax collection in 2015-16.
– Between 2000 to 2015, total tax collected increased from Rs 31,764 crore to Rs 2.86 lakh crore. Thus, in 16 years, India recorded a 9-fold increase in tax collection
– Maharashtra accounts of 39.9% of all Income Tax collected in India; and Delhi accounts for 13.1%. Together, these two states account for 53% of overall tax collection.
– Delhi, which is legally a ‘half-state’, generated more Income Tax than Gujarat, UP, Punjab and Haryana combined
– Between 2008-09 to 2014-15, Sikkim witnessed maximum increase in tax collection at 11.1%; followed by Mizoram at 6.1% and Kerala at 3.2% (annual basis)
– Total of 5430 Indians paid tax of Rs 1 crore or more; collectively, these Rs 1cr+ tax-paying Indians paid Rs 8907 crore as tax
– In the last 4 years, 80 lakh new tax payers have been added in India.
– On an average, an Indian paid Rs 21000 as annual tax; and collectively, IT Dept. received Rs 23,000 crore as tax for the year 2011-12.
– 89% of taxpayers paid an amount of Rs 1.5 lakh as annual tax
– Top three richest tax-paying Indians paid Rs 437 crore as tax; which makes average tax outgo of Rs 145.8 crore of these 3 Indians
– For the year 2011-12, 20.23 lakh Indians who paid tax had an annual income between Rs 5.5 lakh and Rs. 9.5 lakh. They collectively earned Rs 1.4 lakh crore.
– For that same year, only 6 Indians qualified for the income bracket between Rs 50-100 crore per year; while 17,515 Indians declared their earning between Rs 1-5 crore per year.
You can find the details related to Income Tax here; and PAN Allotment Data for 2013-14 here.
