Kudos To The Indian Taxpayer: Post-2014, More I-T Returns Are Being Filed, And Happily So

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday (11 October) that the number of direct taxpayers is expected to double to 7.6 crore during the five-year term of the NDA government. The number of direct taxpayers was 3.8 crore when the Modi-led government took office in May 2014, reports Financial Express.
Jaitley credited the record increase in number of direct taxpayers to initiatives of the NDA government like anti-black money measures, steps towards formalisation of economy, leveraging technology and building intelligent systems to detect transactions.

Jaitley said that, “Four years ago, when we assumed office, the total number of people who filed tax returns in India was 3.80 crore. It’s already 6.86 crore last year, which is the fourth year. At the end of the fifth year, I do hope it will be something close to 7.6 crore or 7.5 crore, which means that in five years, we would have doubled the number of people filing tax returns in India.”

“If we look at the functioning of the direct tax department, various factors like strict compliance, rationalisation of tax structure, lowering the lowest slab, and the result of that has been… we are finding 15-20 per cent gradual increase in the tax collections every year,” Jaitley added.