Finance ministry mulls releasing I-T data annually

The finance ministry plans to bring out detailed income tax (I-T) data annually, in response to criticism by economist Thomas Piketty over lack of public I-T statistics in India.

After almost 16 years, the revenue department last week made public three sets of data related to direct taxes, including time series data since 2001-02. The detailed analysis of I-T statistics, based on returns filed, was for 2011-12 alone.

Piketty, economist and author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, told Business Standard the data released by the government were too limited to draw significant inferences. "The government released detailed data by income range only for 2012-2013 (assessment year). To study the evolution of income distribution, we would need detailed data by income range for all years. I am looking forward to see this data," he said in an emailed response.

The finance ministry is set to update the income range data by releasing it for assessment years 2013-14 and 2014-15 by June-end.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told Business Standard: "There are three different portions of the I-T data placed in the public domain…. The third section covers detailed analysis of the I-T statistics for 2012-13. We hope to bring out detailed statistics for another two years subsequent to this as early as possible."

The data showed top 2.5 per cent of the individuals filing returns earned 20 per cent of the total salary income, which suggest inequality in the country. Besides, over half of those who filed returns paid no tax in 2011-12. Of the 31.1 million who filed returns, 55.6 per cent paid no tax, as their taxable income was below the threshold.

Earlier, the government used to come out with a publication, All India Income Tax Statistics, which was discontinued in 2001. Many academicians, including Piketty, had requested the tax administration to resume publishing the data.

A government official said: "It is quite cumbersome to collate enormous data for several years. We are in the process of updating it to assessment year 2015-16 in a month or two. From the next financial year, we plan to make it an annual affair. The data we release now are based on actual filings against the earlier ones, which were based on sampling."

The earlier set of data were quite erroneous, therefore, we discontinued them."