Finally, The Income Tax Department reveals Income Tax Data!

In a bid to be a transparent government, the Modi government is trying to leave no stone unturned. The Income Tax Department had released statistics a few months back relating to Income Tax Data which turned out to be really enthralling. Let's look at the key highlights:

• Direct Tax collection increased by 9% from A.Y. 2014-15 as Rs. 695792 Crores of Tax was collected during the A.Y. 2015-16.

  Assessment Year	Corporate Tax	Personal Income Tax	Other Direct Tax	Total
  2011-12	298688	146258	1049	445995
  2012-13	322816	170181	990	493987
  2013-14	356326	201840	823	558989
  2014-15	394678	242888	1030	638596
  2015-16	428925	265772	1095	695792

• In the A.Y. 2014-15, only 3.82% of the total population paid taxes, interestingly, the percentage was higher in A.Y. 2013-14 as 3.88% of the total population paid taxes.
• Did you know that Maharashtra and Delhi together pay more than 50% of the taxes and on the other hand the seven sister states do not even contribute 1% of the total taxes?
• Chandigarh is top tax paying Union Territory as the taxpayers from Chandigarh contributed 1992.65 crore of taxes!
• Ever wondered, how much of the tax is contributed by way of TDS, Assessment Tax, Advance Tax, etc?

  Assessment Year	TDS	Advance Tax	Self-Assessment Tax	Regular Assessment Tax	Other Receipts	Total Gross Direct Tax Receipt
  2013-14	210654	275794	39470	62418	48596	636932
  2014-15	248547	292522	44123	72528	63884	721604
  2015-16	259106	326525	52050	80189	81589	799459

  
  
• Before A.Y. 2008-09, Indirect Taxes were always greater than Direct Taxes but since A.Y. 2008-09 this changed and until today, Direct Taxes trumps Indirect Taxes. For the A.Y. 2015-16, Direct Taxes were 56.16% of the total taxes!
• On the other hand, the total of corporate taxes have always been higher than the total of personal taxes, In the A.Y. 2015-16, Corporate Taxes (428925 Cr.) was more than 1.5 times of the personal taxes (265772 Cr.)!
• Is there any cost that is incurred by the government in collecting taxes?

  Assessment Year	Total Collections	Total Expenditure	Cost of Collection
  2001-2002	68305	929	1.36%
  2008-09	314330	1687	0.54%
  2015-16	695792	4101	0.59%

• Tax Growth Rate for the last 5 years shows a negative trend as there has been a significant reduction in the growth of direct taxes.

  Assessment Year	Tax Growth Rate
  2011-12	17.97%
  2012-13	10.76%
  2013-14	13.16%
  2014-15	14.24%
  2015-16	8.96%

• How much does direct tax contribute towards the GDP of India?

  Assessment Year	Direct Tax GDP Ratio
  2011-12	5.81%
  2012-13	5.48%
  2013-14	5.53%
  2014-15	5.62%
  2015-16	5.55%

  Some statistics are very surprising, say only 3.82% of the total population file their taxes. Should we assume that the remaining population are under the basic exemption limit or we think it the other way that a large part of the population just evade taxes. The government’s work in the last few years in terms of the collection of direct taxes has been phenomenal owing to digitalisation of Income Tax Returns, Income Tax Payment, the introduction of e-verification and a robust backend. Also, the government has been very proactive in conducting raids, launching various schemes like Income Declaration Scheme to maximise tax collection. The intent is right but there’s a need of improvement in the execution especially at the ground level. Hopefully, everything will fall into place in the upcoming years. Source: http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Documents/Time-Series-Data-Final.pdf

Population has been taken as 1,26,34,37,611 for A.Y. 2013-14 and 1,27,17,02,542 for A.Y. 2014-15