60 Lakh Income Taxpayers Fall Under 30% Slab In The Current Fiscal

Over 60 lakh taxpayers came under the 30% tax slab in FY23 alone, minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary told the Rajya Sabha on Monday.

The minister was responding to a question on tax base widening efforts undertaken by the government. According to the data presented by Chaudhary, taxpayers in the 30% slab had grown from 48.4 lakh in FY22 to 60.8 lakh in FY23.

Under the old tax regime, individuals with an aggregate income of over Rs 10 lakh per annum fell into the highest tax slab. In the new regime, the threshold has been raised to Rs 15 lakh per annum. This excludes non-resident Indians and senior citizens.

Data on gross tax collections over the last five years also showed that tax receipts had grown by over 33% to Rs 27.1 lakh crore in FY22 from the year before the pandemic, when it stood at Rs 20.3 lakh crore.

The minister also listed system-related efforts taken by the department to increase the tax net in the country, such as the addition of new statements of financial transactions, an e-campaign for non filers monitoring system, a risk management strategy, an annual information system, mandatory quoting of PAN and the linking of PAN and Aadhaar, among others.

While answering a separate question, Chaudhary also spoke about the arrears and recoveries made as of January 2023.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes has issued an Annual Central Action Plan for FY23 to achieve time-bound targets for arrear demands, he said.