Dip in returns for income below ₹5 lakh

The number of income tax returns filed by persons declaring a gross taxable income above ₹5 crore rose to 4,499 in financial year 2014-15, which is nearly 63% higher than the number seen three years previously, according to data released by the Income-Tax Department on Wednesday.

The overall number of returns filed in 2014-15, at 4.07 crore, was 40.8% higher than the number in 2011-12. Within this, the number of filers reporting an income less than ₹5 lakh a year grew at a slower pace of 27%.

The faster pace of growth in the number of returns filed for the higher income bracket has meant that the proportion of filers declaring an income of less than ₹5 lakh has fallen over the years.

The number of returns for an income less than ₹5 lakh made up 80.7% of all returns filed by individuals in 2011-12. This proportion fell to 72.8% in 2014-15.

Steep rise

Looking at salary incomes, 1,648 returns were filed in 2014-15 for a salary income of more than ₹5 crore a year, a 109% increase over the number seen in 2011-12. Contrastingly, the number of people reporting a salary income of less than ₹5 lakh grew only 30.5%.

As with the trend seen with gross taxable income, the number of people declaring a salary of less than ₹5 lakh a year made up 86.8% of all returns in 2011-12, which fell to 80.5% in 2014-15. The firm level data shows that the number of returns filed by companies increased 14.2%.

“In efforts to place more information in the public domain, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has released data relating to distribution of income and tax payable in respect of returns filed for the Assessment Year 2015-16 [financial year 2014-15],” the government said in a release.

“...detailed income-tax data for four recent assessment years have become available in public domain enabling researchers, scholars, policy makers, students and all other stakeholders make a better analysis of the trends in incomes and tax payments,” the release said. Taking a total country-wide population of 130 crore, the data shows that only 3.13% of them filed returns at the individual level.