Govt. throws open I-T data; tax base stays narrow

The government has for the first time put the data on income tax in public domain.

Highlights:

• Just 1% of individuals, who declared their income in assessment year 2012-13, accounted for almost 20% of the taxable income. Among corporates, however, this imbalance is starker, with a little more than 5% of the companies accounting for a whopping 94% of the taxable income.
• Direct tax collections have fallen drastically in the last five years, growing at an average annual rate of 8.5% between assessment years 2011-12 and 2015-16, compared to the 14.1% over the previous five years.
• The drop in the growth rate of direct tax collections was accompanied by an equally dire slowdown in the growth of corporate tax. Corporate tax grew at an average annual rate of 7.1% between assessment years 2011-12 and 2015-16, down from the heady 15.6% seen in the previous five years.
• The personal income tax data — which also includes securities transaction taxes — on the other hand, barely witnessed a change in growth rates in this period, growing at an annual average of 9.1% between 2011 and 2015, just 0.2 percentage points slower than the growth seen in the previous five years.
• The data also shows that there were 13.3 lakh individuals declaring an income of more than Rs 10 lakh a year — the section of people the government has excluded from the LPG subsidy.
• Among the states, Gujarat saw the fastest growth in its direct tax collections, growing 185% in FY2014-15 to Rs 12,577 crore compared to its level in FY2008-09. Tamil Nadu saw the next-fastest growth in the period, with its direct tax collections growing 116% to Rs 20,651 crore in FY2014-15. Maharashtra and West Bengal were the other states seeing rapid growth in their direct tax collections.
• The State-wise data also revealed some anomalies. For example, Mizoram recorded Rs 39.8 crore of direct tax collections in FY2014-15, which is more than double what it collected in the previous year. Chattisgarh, on the other hand, saw its direct tax collections grow 0.01% in FY2014-15 to Rs 1,287 crore compared to its level in 2008-09.