Story in numbers: How tax-compliant are our lawmakers?

75% of MPs and MLAs nationwide declared annual incomes less than Rs 10 lakh

About 72 per cent of members of Parliament (MPs) and members of legislative assemblies (MLAs) of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, in tax returns filed a year before they were elected, have claimed they earn less than Rs 10 lakh a year, according to an analysis of affidavits of 4,848 (of 4,910) MPs and MLAs.

As many as 75 per cent of MPs and MLAs nationwide declared annual incomes less than Rs 10 lakh, the analysis found. Around 35 per cent of lawmakers said their annual income was less than Rs 2.5 lakh, while 40 per cent have declared an annual income between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 10 lakh. As many as 1,141 (24 per cent) claimed exemption from income tax or no income at all.

"We can conclude we are largely a tax non-compliant society," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said during his Budget speech on February 1. Jaitley said of the 37 million individuals who filed returns in 2015-16, 9.9 million (27 per cent) declared annual incomes below the exemption limit of Rs 2.5 lakh; 19.5 million (53 per cent) declared annual earnings between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, while 7.6 million (20 per cent) declared annual incomes of over Rs 5 lakh.

If the annual incomes of a family (spouse and dependants, as declared in their respective tax returns) are added to the incomes of MPs and MLAs, 62 per cent legislators' households have an income less than Rs 10 lakh a year.

About half (2,410) of MPs and MLAs have declared household assets (movable and immovable assets of the elected member, spouse and dependent/s) of more than Rs 2 crore. Of them, 912 (38 per cent) declared family incomes of less than Rs 10 lakh.

Of 1,843 MPs and MLAs with family incomes of more than Rs 10 lakh, 106 declared household assets of less than Rs 1 crore.

Only 25 per cent (1,236 of 4,848) of MPs and MLAs declared in tax returns that their annual incomes were more than Rs 10 lakh; 35 per cent (1,676) declared incomes less than Rs 2.5 lakh.