She Is Among India’s Wealthiest Wives, but Paid Only Rs 25k as Tax

Allowing a billionaire’s wife to pay just Rs 25K as tax raises several questions, especially during demonetisation.

Illustration: Harsh Sahni/The Quint

The Quint has accessed a sensitive document prepared by the Income Tax (I-T) department which reveals incomes declared by some big industrialists in India. Since individual tax data is highly classified and privileged, we shall not be revealing any names.

However, some of the details in these documents are bewildering, and prove how porous and malleable our tax laws are. Most egregious of all is the shocking instance of the wife of one of India's biggest business tycoons – like several industrialists’ wives, she too works in the fields of health and education – who paid a mere Rs 25,229 as Income Tax for the Assessment Year (AY) 2013-14. The Total Taxable Income declared by the lady is Rs 4,44,940.

Graphics: Liju Joseph/ The Quint

On the other hand, in the AY 2009-10, she declared Rs 34,40,540 as her personal income and paid tax of Rs 10,69,754. It clearly shows a sharp decline in her taxable personal income by 85%, even as her family business has been booming through these years. Did the I-T Department investigate why she declared such a low income?

She paid income tax on the same day as her husband and mother-in-law, but no objection was raised by the assessing officer. In 2013, only one percent of India's population – about 12 million citizens – paid income tax, according to data published for the first time in 16 years. In 2014-15, the number of tax payers rose to 50 million.

There are also several other examples of people who are known, and seen to enjoy fabulous wealth, but whose tax liabilities are puny. In some cases, perhaps the tax is being levied on one day of their earnings, rather than on annual incomes! Was the Income Tax Department lenient towards them? Or will this figure be used as a tool by the I-T Department to extract money through different channels for personal benefit?

Think about it – if the wife of a billionaire, whose taxable income suffered a massive decline, got away by paying only Rs 25,229 as tax, isn’t it time the government seriously rethought India’s taxation system?