‘Cars sold per year outnumber tax payers’

A nation of over 125 crore people had only 3.65 crore individuals filing their tax returns in the assessment year 2014-15, the official said alluding to a  huge number of individuals being outside the tax net. 

“Of the 3.65 crore individuals (filing returns in assessment year 2014-15), there were only 5.5 lakh people who paid income tax of more than Rs 5 lakh and accounted for 57 per cent of the total tax kitty. This essentially means that only 1.5 per cent of those filing tax returns (3.65 crore) are contributing to 57 per cent of tax kitty,” the official said. 

The tax returns when compared with car sales throw astonishing numbers, he said. “Car sales on an average in last five years has been about 25 lakh per year. In the last three years the car sales were 25.03 lakh, 26 lakh and 27 lakh,” he said adding the statistics points to a large number of people having income to buy cars are outside the tax bracket. 

The November 8 decision to junk old 500 and 1000 rupee notes are one of the steps to tackle the menace, he said. The income tax data collated shows only 48,417 persons reporting income of more than Rs 1 crore in a year. Yet luxury brands like BMW, Jaguar, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche and Maserati sell almost 35,000 cars every year. 

Of the individuals filing returns, 5.32 lakh were with income of less than Rs 2 lakh per annum, and so not within the tax bracket.