The ITRs filed this year increased to 71%, a 5.42 cr from last year’s 3.17 cr. Under presumptive taxation, the filings increased by 8 fold and under e-filing by salaried employees increased by 54%.
Presumptive tax schemes had 1.17 cr filings from 14.93 lakh in August last year while e-filing by salaried individuals increased from 2.19 cr to 3.37 cr this year. Presumptive taxation was simplified in Budget 2018-19 to suit small traders and entrepreneurs with annual turnover of less than ₹ 2 crore. And for professionals with annual turnover of less than ₹ 50 lakh to support more filings of Income tax returns.
About 44.72 lakh returns were filed by individual/HUF/firms with an average meagre turnover of ₹17.97 lakh. Such filings drew taxes worth only ₹7,000 on an average.
Finance Minister’s statement
While Arun Jaitley was affirmative about the ITR numbers, he expressed concern over the tax payments received.
‘The increase in the number of returns reveals a marked improvement in the level of voluntary compliance of taxpayers,’ Jaitley said.
‘Under this (presumptive taxation) scheme, 41 per cent more returns were filed during this year which shows that many more persons are joining the tax net under simplified scheme. However, the turnover shown is still not encouraging’, he decared.
‘The tax compliance behavior of professionals is no better; the department has received 5.68 lakh returns under the presumptive income (taxation) scheme for assessment year 2017-18 with average gross receipts of Rs 5.73 lakh only. Average tax paid by them is only Rs 35,000’, he added.