Driving away the 3%.

"India's net direct tax collection stood at Rs 15.60 lakh crore (Rs 15.60 trillion) as of February 10, reaching approximately 80% of the revised target set for the entire financial year, the official government data showed." "India's gross tax revenue for fiscal 2025 is estimated to be Rs 38.31 trillion," 11.45% higher than the government's revised target, and "New Delhi aims to raise Rs 21.99 trillion from direct taxes and Rs 16.31 trillion from indirect taxes in fiscal year 2025." "Tax buoyancy is the ratio of growth in tax collections to nominal GDP." "According to economists and tax experts, compliance is playing a big role in garnering direct taxes." And, "A fall in input costs has boosted corporate earnings." MC. "In 2024-25, the government expects to earn Rs 10.43 trillion, or 3.18% of GDP, through corporation tax, and Rs 11.56 trillion, of 3.53% of GDP, through PIT (personal income tax)." "In 2023-24, the government expects to collect total corporation tax of Rs 9.23 trillion, or 3.11% of GDP, and PIT is expected to be at Rs 10.22 trillion, or 3.45% of GDP." "Aggregate data of around 35,000 companies sourced from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) suggests that profits before tax (PBT) of these companies went up by 144% between 2018-19 and 2021-22." And profit after tax (PAT) by 244%. For the 5,000 listed companies PBT went up by 128% and PAT by 186% in the same period, wrote Vivek Kaul. The reason for the jump in company profits is that, "In September 2019, the government announced a cut in base corporate tax for then existing companies to 22% from 30%; and for new manufacturing firms, incorporated after October 1, 2019 from 15% from 25%." ET. The reason for higher personal tax collections is the exorbitant rates at higher levels of income. For instance, for income above Rs 1.5 million, the tax will be Rs 150,000 plus 30% on income above Rs 1.5 million. A Health and Education cess at 4% is added to all levels of income tax and a surcharge of 10% of tax on income above Rs 5 million, 15% on income above Rs 10 million, 25% on income above Rs 20 million and 37% on income above Rs 50 million, taking the top rate to above 40%. cleartax. The total number of taxpayers rose to 36 million in 2019-20, dropped to 19 million the next year and rose to 20.9 million in 2021-22, which is 2.2% of 943.5 million voters. "About 97% of taxpayers paid up to Rs 1 million in Assessment Year 2021-22, accounting for 52.4% of total taxes paid. On the other hand, only about 3% of taxpayers paid over Rs 1 million. But this small group contributed 47.6% of the total tax collected. TOI. As a result, "216,000 individuals gave up Indian citizenship in 2023, a jump of 50% since 2019, when the number was 144,000." Kaul. The number may seem negligible compared to the total population but these are the ones paying higher taxes and will take their money and businesses with them. Taxes decrease our earnings. Instead of making us richer the government makes us poorer. And boasts about it.