Only few paying taxes? It is called inequality.

The Income Tax Department has announced that 8.2 million people filed tax returns on income less than Rs 250,000 in 2015, compared to nearly 14 million in the previous year. Why did so many taxpayers disappear? Turns out they promoted themselves into the Rs 250-350,000 bracket, which had 13.4 million people, a jump of 65%.,  This is important because we start paying income tax on earnings above Rs 250,000 in the whole year, which comes to about Rs 21,000 per month. 59,830 people earned more than Rs 10 billion and 4,499 declared  income of over Rs 50 million. Total collection rose from Rs 18.41 trillion to Rs 21.27 trillion. Only one person declared an income of over Rs 1 billion in 2015. Why is the news being released after 2 years? Strange. This year, 27.9 million filed income tax returns, compared to 22.3 million last year. So Indians are getting richer. Surprising, when the rate of defaults on education loans has risen by 47% because there are not enough jobs paying respectable wages. Children do not incur education loans for BA, BSc or BCom courses but for professional degrees in engineering, medicine or management, and there are not enough jobs for them. So who are all the new taxpayers? The Finance Minister said that retail inflation increased in November because of the enormous pay increases awarded to civil servants under the 7th Pay Commission, which increases the basic salary in the lowest grade from, Rs 7,000 to Rs 21,000. Retail inflation increased to 4.88%, while core inflation was 4.83%. Government employees are already receiving Dearness Allowance of 5%, which is a cushion against price increases. They will also get annual increments of 3%. Although direct tax collections jumped to Rs 8.5 trillion in the last financial year, over Rs 7.42 trillion the previous year, it was still below indirect tax collections of Rs 8.6 trillion. Collections from GST, the new indirect tax system introduced in July, fell in October. So, how to fill the insatiable demand for money? On the one hand tax officers will visit those paying GST for individual assessments, while refunds for tax on exports is being done manually. On direct taxes, 8,000 prosecution notices are to be sent to terrorise people into paying up. This government has decided on tax terrorism at its most coercive possible. The middle class in India earns between $2 and $10 dollars per day, which is below Rs 20,000 per month, so not taxable. Total wealth of this middle class is less than $10,000, or Rs 650,000. So, civil servants earn a lot and, of course, politicians. Perhaps we need a Magna Carta specially for India.