Skip to main content

Finance ministry mulls releasing I- T data annually

By
The finance ministry plans to bring out detailed income tax ( I- T) data annually, in response to criticism by economist Thomas Piketty over lack of public I- T statistics in India.
After almost 16 years, the revenue department last week made public three sets of data related to direct taxes, including time series data since 2001- 02. The detailed analysis of I- T statistics, based on returns filed, was for 2011- 12 alone.
Piketty, economist and author of Capital
in the Twenty- First Century, told Business
Standard the data released by the government were too limited to draw significant inferences. “ The government released detailed data by income range only for 20122013 ( assessment year). To study the evolution of income distribution, we would need detailed data by income range for all years. Iam looking forward to see this data,” he said in an emailed response.
The finance ministry is set to update the income range data by releasing it for assessment years 2013- 14 and 2014- 15 by June- end.
Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told Business Standard: “ There are three different portions of the I- T data placed in the public domain…. The third section covers detailed analysis of the I- T statistics for 2012- 13. We hope to bring out detailed statistics for another two years subsequent to this as early as possible.” The data showed top 2.5 per cent of the individuals filing returns earned 20 per cent of the total salary income, which suggest inequality in the country. Besides, over half of those who filed returns paid no tax in 2011- 12. Of the 31.1 million who filed returns, 55.6 per cent paid no tax, as their taxable income was below the threshold.
Earlier, the government used to come out with a publication, All India Income Tax Statistics, which was discontinued in 2001. Many academicians, including Piketty, had requested the tax administration to resume publishing the data.
A government official said: “ It is quite cumbersome to collate enormous data for several years. We are in the process of updating it to assessment year 2015- 16 in a month or two. From the next financial year, we plan to make it an annual affair. The data we release now are based on actual filings against the earlier ones, which were based on sampling.”
Business Standard New Delhi,10th May 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Healthy balance sheets augur well for economy: RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra

By
  Large tariffs by the United States administration and elevated geopolitical risk have increased near-term global financial stability risks, and along with weather events pose downside risks to domestic growth, Reserve Bank of India(RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra said in the foreword to the Financial Stability Report released today.Noting that domestic growth momentum is buoyed by strong domestic drivers, sound macroeconomic fundamentals and prudent policies, Malhotra said: “External spillovers and weather-related events could pose downside risks to growth.”On the other hand, he said the outlook for inflation is benign, and there is greater confidence in the durable alignment of inflation with the Reserve Bank’s target.Commenting that the structural shifts reshaping the global economy are making policy intervention challenging, the Governor emphasised the need for central banks and financial sector regulators to remain vigilant, prudent and agile in safeguarding their economies and...
Post a Comment
Read more