391.28 lakh valid tax returns received for Assessment Year 2014-15,with ₹4,46,719 crore in total taxes payable.

The NDA government takes heart from the fact that the number of tax filers has swollen to about 4 crore. But just about 3.14 lakh assessees – or less than 1 per cent of those taxpayers – who actually help fill the department’s coffers. 

According to recently published Income Tax Return Statistics for Assessment year 2014-15, these 3.14 lakh high-value taxpayers together paid ₹3,30,910 crore as taxes on their incomes, which accounts for 74 per cent of all the taxes that the nearly 4 crore income tax return filers paid that year.

Each of these 3.14 lakh assessees had tax liability in excess of ₹10 lakh for 2014-15; these numbers include 64 assessees who paid on an average ₹1,770 crore each in taxes.

The data also revealed that a total of 391.28 lakh valid tax returns were received by the Income Tax Department from individuals, businesses and companies for the assessment year 2014-15, with ₹4,46,719 crore in total taxes payable. 

The number of income tax returns as well as taxes payable by these return filers climbed 25 per cent between 2012-13 and 2014-15. 

However, the share of taxes paid by the high-value tax payers in 2014-15 saw only a small change, notwithstanding the increase in the number of tax filers. 

The high-value tax filers (of whom there were 2.37 lakh) contributed about 79 per cent of the taxes on income in 2012-13, compared to 74 per cent in 2014-15. 

This is because the largest increase in tax return filers was seen among those with tax liability of less than ₹1.5 lakh for the year. 

Their numbers rose from 122.21 lakh to 183.67 lakh, a 50 per cent increase. 

The average tax paid by this lot of return filers rose 24 per cent to about ₹26,000 in 2014-15 from ₹21,000 in 2012-13.