On Income Tax Day, Here Are Some Numbers You Should Know

Income Tax turns 157 today.

Proper tax planning can help save tax on rental income, that is the largest source of income after salary. (Photo: iStock)

From the Union Budget to every possible interaction on personal finance, one thing that intrigues one and all is the tax question and the most prominent member of the tax family is income tax.

Only fair then, that a particular day – 24 July – has been marked as the Income Tax Day, to commemorate the first time income tax was introduced. And believe it or not, income tax turned 157 today.

Here are some handy numbers to celebrate the day:

To start with, income tax is a type of direct tax, which make up for just about half of the total revenues that the government earns – the other half comes in the form of indirect taxes.

Data suggests that personal income tax makes up more than 40 percent of the total direct tax collection over the years.

Thus, almost a quarter of the government’s earnings come from income taxes.

As far as the taxpayers are concerned, their numbers have gone up from 52,793,542 in the Assessment Year 2013-14 to 74,127,250 in Assessment Year 2017-18 – a jump of more than 40 percent, according to government data.

The increase in total number of taxpayers maybe attributed to the spike in number of individual taxpayers, which has gone up by nearly 41.5 percent during the same period.

No wonder, widening the tax net has been one of the oft-quoted success stories by the Modi government on the economic front.

Government data also shows that among states, Maharashtra is head and shoulders above others, as far as paying taxes is concerned.

The national capital of Delhi and the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu come next, followed by West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.