Income Tax Records available to Public


BENGALURU: As per data released by the government, only 10 lakh income tax assesses declare that their income is above 10 lakh in a year, as reported by The Economic Times. As per the report only 4 percent of total Indian population or 5.1 crore people paid tax in the assessment year 2015-16. In 2012-13 there were fewer than 20,000 assesses who revealed that they earned more than 1 Crore in a year. Out of the 3.1 crore returns filed in 2012-13, the largest people were in the tax bracket of 5.5-9.5 lakh income. Income Tax Department of India has released Time Series Data for financial years 2000-01 to 2014-15 for encouraging enhanced utilization and analysis while giving transparency along with informed policymaking capabilities. The Central Board of Direct Taxes and Department of Revenues under Ministry of Finance have made Income Tax records available to public for the first time in Indian history.

According to the Time Series Data, number of effective assesses was 4.36 crore in assessment year 2011-12, which has increased to 5.17 crore in 2015-16. The share of direct taxes has declined to 5.47 percent in 2015-16 from 6.3 percent in the financial year 2007-08. In 2014-15 Maharashtra had the highest share in direct taxes that amounted to 2.77 lakh crore from the total collection of 6.96 lakh crore. Delhi was second largest contributor at 91,248 crore followed by Karnataka at third place. The ratio of direct taxes has increased to 51 percent in assessment year 2015-16 from 36.31 percent in 2000-01. Another shocking revelation of the report was that the 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.

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