NEW DELHI: Only 2.24 crore individuals who filed returns in 2022-23 paid taxes out of the total 7.4 crore taxpayers, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday. Responding to a question in Lok Sabha, the Finance minister said out of 7.40 crore return filers nearly 5.16 crore declared zero tax liability.
However, the number of return filers grew by 6.18% in FY23, Sitharaman said in the Lok Sabha.
According to government data, the number of persons who filed ITRs during the last four years has shown a rise. Meanwhile, in FY 22, more than 6.94 crore returns were filed of which more than 5.05 crore had zero tax liability. In FY21 and FY20, 6.72 crore and 6.47 crore ITRs were filed, respectively. Of this 4.8 crore in FY 21 and 2.9 crore assesses in FY 20 had zero tax liability.
India’s gross direct tax collection grew 20.33% to over `19.68 lakh crore in FY 23. Meanwhile, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta during the Income Tax Day event said, “7% of the assesses who filed tax returns this year are new taxpayers.”
He further added that the number of new taxpayers is expected to increase by July 31. He also said this year, 50% of the returns have already been processed and refunds related to 80 lakh assesses have been processed. Speaking at the Income Tax Day event 2023, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that about 1 lakh notices were sent in cases where income was found to be over `50 lakh.