The chart in Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian's article "Taxation's fatal neglect?" (January 20) clearly shows that the rate of growth of taxpayers in India dropped from around 23 per cent to around two per cent in the National Democratic Alliance days, and that this value increased marginally to just over three per cent in the United Progressive Alliance days. The low rate of increase in the number of taxpayers shows that gross domestic product growth of the economy has increased incomes almost entirely in the hands of existing taxpayers; those exempt from taxation viz. farmers and perhaps also in the hands of wealthy businessmen, many of whom avoid declaring their true income. This last category needs to be targeted better by the tax authorities to increase the number of taxpayers.
Alok Sarkar Kolkata
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