Income Tax Return: Taxpayers' declared wealth at whopping Rs 45 lakh crore! 68% more crorepati ITR filers

India's total number of taxpayers showing income above Rs 1 crore has gone up sharply in the last three years. These include corporates, firms, HUFs, etc.  According to a Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) release, as many as 88,649 taxpayers disclosed income above Rs. 1 crore in Assessment Year (AY) 2014-15. This number went up to 1,40,139 for AY 2017-18 (growth of about 60%). According to the release, the number of individual taxpayers disclosing income above Rs 1 crore also increased by up to 68% from 48,416 to 81,344 during the period under reference. 

CBDT released time-series data as updated up to FY 2017-18 and income-distribution data for AY 2016-17 and AY 2017-18 on Monday. It noted that there has been a constant growth in direct tax-GDP ratio over the last three years and the ratio of 5.98% in FY 2017-18 is the best DT-GDP ratio in last 10 years.

Here are some other highlights:

- There is a growth of more than 80% in the number of returns filed in the last four financial years from 3.79 crore in FY 2013-14 (base year) to 6.85 crore in FY 2017-18.

- The number of persons filing return of income has increased by about 65% during this period from 3.31 crore in FY 2013-14 to 5.44 crore in FY 2017-18.

- There has been a continuous increase in the amount of income declared in the returns filed by all categories of taxpayers over the last three Assessment Years (AYs). 
- For AY 2014-15, corresponding to FY 2013-14 (base year), the return filers had declared gross total income of Rs.26.92 lakh crore, which has increased by 67% to Rs.44.88 lakh crore for AY 2017-18.

- The average tax paid by corporate taxpayers has increased from Rs.32.28 lakh in AY 2014-15 to Rs.49.95 lakh in AY 2017-18 (growth of 55%). There is also an increase of 26% in the average tax paid by individual taxpayers from Rs.46,377/- in AY 2014-15 to Rs.58,576/- in AY 2017-18.

- During the three-year period under reference, the number of salaried taxpayers has increased from 1.70 crore for AY 2014-15 to 2.33 crore for AY 2017-18 (up by 37%). The average income declared by the salaried taxpayers has gone up by 19% from Rs.5.76 lakh to Rs.6.84 lakh.

- During the same period, there has also been a growth of 19% in the number of non-salaried individual taxpayers from 1.95 crore to 2.33 crore and the average non-salary income declared has increased by 27% from Rs. 4.11 lakh in AY 2014-15 to Rs. 5.23 lakh in AY 2017-18.