Below article in Times of India made me think.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Only-2-77-Indians-pay-income-tax/articleshow/9816887.cms
What information does the percentage figure give us?
The statement by minister of State for finance says that only 2.77% of Indians paid personal income tax in 2010.
We should be able to answer following questions to put things in right perspective
1. What percentage of population is in working category (18 – 60) I guess.
2. Filing tax forms should be mandatory even when your income is less than 1 lakh per annum. Basically I am trying to get answer to the question – How many people actually earned some money by working. This number should be subset of previous question
3. How many people actually paid taxes after applying all tax benefits. I believe this 2.77%
4. I was reading elsewhere that agriculturalists are not accounted in this. In my opinion, this figure should include all individuals irrespective of class or job.
I was trying to gather information for US and was able to pull data from official website
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=134951,00.html
They clearly report on all income bracket people (includes below $5000 which is below poverty line). We need such sample data report for Indian population as well. It seems in US 45% people are in working class and around 20% actually pay positive income tax.
If someone knows how to pull such information for Indian population, let us know by commenting. I cannot believe that more data is not provided around 2.77% income tax payer.
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