Only 4.07 cr people filed IT return in FY15, only one person had income above Rs 500 cr: govt data

A minuscule 4.07 crore of India's 120 crore people filed income tax returns in assessment year 2015-16 (or financial year 2014-15), while 82 lakh of them fell in the bracket of zero income tax.

The statistics for assessment year 2015-16 released by the Income Tax Department showed that in the same assessment year, only 1,156 individuals showed an income between Rs 10 crore and Rs 25 crore, whereas nearly 35,000 luxury cars were sold in the country.

Another 1.33 crore people fell in the lowest income tax slab with their incomes ranging between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 3.5 lakh. Only one crore people paid over Rs 1 lakh each as taxes on income. The tax net, including Hindu Undivided Families, firms, and companies, among others amounted to 4.36 crore returns. Also, 1.64 crore returns were deemed invalid, even as assessees paid the tax.  

There was only one person with an income of over Rs 500 crore in 2015-16, the data showed. As many as 31 people were those who earned between Rs 100 crore and Rs 500 crore. There were only 17 people in India with an income between Rs 100 crore and Rs 500 crore in the assessment year 2014-15.

The data showed that a total number of 4.07 crore people filed income tax returns of which 82 lakh individuals had income below Rs 2.5 lakh each, thus falling in the zero tax bracket as no income tax is levied on income of up to Rs 2.5 lakh.

The data was released late Wednesday evening. It showed that the base of income taxpayers grew slowly in the assessment years 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15, but it took a leap forward after demonetisation in November 2016, when a whopping 91 lakh new income taxpayers were added to the system, against just 54 lakh in the preceding three years.

The top two highest income taxpaying individuals came from Maharashtra and Delhi. The highest 37% taxes came from Maharashtra, while close to 13% from Delhi. Karnataka came third with 10.1% taxes. Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal followed.

The share of direct taxes in the total tax collected by the Centre in the financial year 2014-15 was 56.16%.