In the last ten years, if you earn less than Rs 20 lakh a year in India, your taxes have gone down, all thanks to Prime Minister Modi and his team. But for people who earn over Rs 50 lakh each year, taxes have increased a lot.
A new report tells us that the number of people making more than Rs 50 lakh has grown from 1.85 lakh in 2013-14 to 9.39 lakh in 2023-24. These high earners are now paying much more in taxes, with total payments reaching Rs 9.62 lakh crore in 2024, up from Rs 2.52 lakh crore in 2014!
Surprisingly, most of India’s income tax—about 76%—now comes from these wealthy individuals. This change has helped the middle class to pay less. More people are also reporting their high incomes because new rules are making it harder to cheat on taxes.
Back in 2014, if you earned over Rs 2 lakh, you had to pay taxes. Now, good tax rules mean you can earn up to Rs 7 lakh without paying any taxes at all! The amount of tax collected from people earning under Rs 10 lakh has dropped from 10.17% in 2014 to just 6.22% in 2024.
Today, people who earn between Rs 2.5 and Rs 7 lakh pay the least taxes compared to other countries. Their average tax bill is just Rs 43,000 in the 2023-24 period. For those earning Rs 10-20 lakh, their tax burden has gone down by almost 60% when we think about inflation.
All of this has made more people want to file their taxes. The number of tax returns has more than doubled, growing from 3.60 crore in 2013-14 to 7.97 crore in 2023-24!
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