{"id":260400,"date":"2023-09-16T19:53:28","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T14:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=260400"},"modified":"2023-09-16T19:53:28","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T14:23:28","slug":"with-an-increase-in-taxpayer-base-closing-the-tax-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/with-an-increase-in-taxpayer-base-closing-the-tax-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"With an increase in taxpayer base, closing the tax gap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cWith an increase in taxpayer base, closing the tax gap\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>\u201cThe Indian Express\u201d <\/strong>on <strong>16th September 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3- Government budgeting<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance- <\/strong>Issues related to taxation<\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>&#8211; The article explains the changes in Indian tax policy landscape in recent years<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Which significant developments have occurred in India&#8217;s tax policy landscape? <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There has been adoption of the<strong> Goods and Services Ta<\/strong>x and the introduction of <strong>faceless assessments. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The<strong> number of taxpayers <\/strong>has surged by 64% between 2014 and 2022, now totalling 93.7 million. This increase is notable across various taxpayer categories.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past five years, more taxpayers have been <strong>submitting their returns.<\/strong> Various reasons drive this change. It includes the <strong>mandatory need for returns<\/strong> related to travel and loans, a growing <strong>inclination to claim deducted taxes<\/strong>, and the<strong> formalisation of the economy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The number of <strong>tax returns indicating zero taxes <\/strong>has also risen. It has <strong>reached 66 percent<\/strong> in the fiscal year 2020-21.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Direct tax collections<\/strong> have outpaced both the average of the previous decade and the GDP growth in three of the last five years. A<strong> tax buoyancy factor of 2.52<\/strong> indicates that there have been <strong>significant improvements in tax compliance.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the contributing factors towards the rise in direct taxes?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The rise in direct taxes can be attributed to the increased<strong> number of taxpayers<\/strong> and <strong>increased reported average incomes<\/strong> in tax returns.<\/p>\n<p>In the fiscal year 2020-21, nearly a <strong>quarter of tax returns<\/strong> disclosed<strong> gross income<\/strong>s falling within the range of <strong>Rs 5,50,000 to Rs 9,50,000. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This represents a<strong> notable shift from the 2015-16 <\/strong>period when <strong>one-third of gross incomes<\/strong> reported in returns fell within the Rs <strong>2,50,000 to Rs 3,50,000 range. <\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What was the impact of Covid-19 on tax collections? <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The effects<strong> extended across two fiscal years<\/strong>. Consequently, <strong>taxes paid<\/strong> on business incomes and overall tax collections experienced a decline between 2019 and 2021, despite the <strong>increase in gross incomes.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The impact of the economic slowdown was not <strong>evenly distributed<\/strong> among different income groups and categories. In the fiscal year 2019-20, the number of tax returns and reported incomes contracted for <strong>specific income brackets.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cWith an increase in taxpayer base, closing the tax gap\u201d published in \u201cThe Indian Express\u201d on 16th September 2023. Syllabus: GS3- Government budgeting Relevance- Issues related to taxation News&#8211; The article explains the changes in Indian tax policy landscape in recent years Which significant developments have occurred&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/with-an-increase-in-taxpayer-base-closing-the-tax-gap\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">With an increase in taxpayer base, closing the tax gap<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,8184,10500],"class_list":["post-260400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-economy","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}