1600 returns filed for salary income over Rs 5 crore in FY16: CBDT

Key Highlights:

• Only five taxpayers in India reported salary income over Rs 100 crore.
• Over 2 crore reported zero salary income for AY 2015-16.
• 1,648 taxpayers reported salary income above Rs 5 crore in the same period.

Returns filed by taxpayers for salary income over Rs 5 crore in India were only a handful while a great majority reported no income. This was revealed on Wednesday, when the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) released income tax returns statistics for the assessment year (AY) 2015-16.

Cumulatively only 1,648 taxpayers reported salary income above Rs 5 crore in the AY 2015-16, as per CBDT data.

For the taxman, any income earned via monthly regular income from an employer or ex-employer paid in the given financial year is considered as 'salary income'.

Majority of the taxpayers totalling 2,46,66,672 reported zero income for that period, the report showed.

At the other end of the spectrum, CBDT data showed only five such individuals reported salary income in the range of over Rs 100 crore and Rs 500 crore.

These individuals received Rs 632 crore as sum of salary income of all returns, the data revealed.

Image Source: CBDT data

A mere 1,228 reported salary earned in the range Rs 5 crore and Rs 10 crore. They received Rs 8,178 crore as ‘sum of salary income’.

The Indian middle class that reported salary income between Rs 1.5 lakh (inclusive of salary income equal to this amount) and Rs 2.5 lakh for the assessment period were over 27 lakh.

Average income for this category was in the range of Rs 1-2 lakh for that period.

In his budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “Among the 3.7 crore individuals who filed the tax returns in 2015-16, 99 lakh show income below the exemption limit of Rs 2.5 lakh per annum, 1.95 crore show income between Rs 2.5 to Rs 5 lakh, 52 lakh show income between Rs 5 to Rs 10 lakh and only 24 lakh people show income above Rs 10 lakh. Of the 76 lakh individual assesses who declare income above Rs 5 lakh, 56 lakh are in the salaried class.”