Rebirth of India: Superior

In India, every citizen who pays personal income tax has a tax card called "Personal Permanent Account Number 12". This card is similar to our resident ID card. It follows the taxpayer throughout his life and records every item of income and expenditure, including restaurant consumption, medical records, credit status, etc.

However, this tax card has another function, which is a symbol of identity, because having a tax card means that you have entered the 2% of rich people in India. According to India's tax system, the starting point for personal income tax is an annual income of 160,000 rupees (about 16,000 yuan in RMB, which is the value before the reform in 2011, and it cannot be found before that). The personal income tax rate for the part between 160,000 rupees and 500,000 rupees is 10%, and the personal income tax rate for 500,000 rupees and 100,000 rupees is 10%. The part of 10,000 rupees is 20%, and the part greater than 1 million rupees is levied at 30%.

It is worth mentioning that India's personal income tax threshold and tax rate fluctuation range will change slightly according to the annual government budget. In addition, the personal income tax threshold for the elderly, women and people in particularly remote and difficult areas has increased to varying degrees, with the aim of protecting vulnerable groups. Correspondingly, taxpayers with an annual income of more than 1 million rupees are required to pay an additional 10% surcharge on the personal income.

In addition, India's personal income tax payment is linked to deposits. If a taxpayer deposits part of his income into a designated bank regularly, up to 100,000 rupees per year will not be included in the tax payment range.

Taking all the above factors into consideration, the personal income tax threshold for ordinary taxpayers in India is equivalent to a salary of two to three thousand yuan per month, which is for an average monthly salary. For the Indian people whose average income is less than 1,000 yuan, this is already a very high starting tax level. The current salary level of ordinary college graduates in India is around 2,000 yuan per month, and the monthly salary of ordinary government civil servants does not exceed 3,000 yuan.

In general, personal income tax payment is a matter for a minority of people in India. Currently, about 2/3 of the population in India lives in rural areas, and they do not have to pay personal income tax. More than 90% of jobs in cities are not affiliated with organized sectors, which means that most of these employees have low wages and receive their salaries in cash. According to statistics from the Indian Ministry of Finance, only 12.5 million people in India paid personal income tax, and about the same number of people filed tax returns but were not included in the tax scope. In other words, the personal income tax payment for that year Only 1% of the Indian population has tax issues.

The reason why Shakru suddenly paid attention to this issue was that he received an invitation to a meeting from the tax department. The Indian Tax Administration wanted to change the current personal income tax system, so it wanted to invite people from all walks of life to attend the meeting to discuss together. Shakru, as a representative of the high-income class, received this invitation.

To be honest, there are many people who evade taxes in India, and there are many ways to evade taxes. Even many wealthy businessmen have changed their nationality for this. Shakru is actually very clear about these methods, but he has never thought about evading taxes. This is not because he has a high level of awareness, but because he thinks that since he has replaced the original little Shakru, he should do something to make up for it. Paying more taxes can make him feel better, and he doesn't lack this little money.

And he also has no problem with the proposal of the tax department this time, because according to the information sent, India's current personal income tax payment is less than 2.4% of the overall GDP, and the current total tax revenue accounts for only about 11% of GDP, which is a huge gap with other emerging economies. The Indian Finance Minister believes that the reasonable range is 20% to 30%, so it is indeed necessary to increase the collection of personal income tax.

In addition, the low amount of personal income tax paid explains why the Indian government has had a high debt ratio and insufficient public spending for a long time. Some people also believe that this shows that the Indian government has long adhered to the policy of keeping wealth in the hands of the people and supporting the middle class.

But he really didn't want to attend this meeting, because as far as he knew, this time the personal income tax was to be raised and the tax on the wealthy class was to be increased. He, Shakru, would not have any objection to the increase in tax because of his guilty mentality, but other wealthy people would definitely not agree with this proposal, so Shakru must not show support for this proposal, otherwise he would not be able to mix in this circle in the future.

Therefore, this time he sent his assistant Modi to attend. In fact, most of the wealthy people who were invited handled it this way, but unlike others, Shakru was still very concerned about the content of this meeting, so he asked him about the content of the meeting as soon as Modi came back.

"The first few items were passed very quickly, such as raising the threshold of personal income tax for men from 160,000 rupees per year to 180,000 rupees, raising the threshold of tax for senior citizens from 240,000 rupees to 250,000 rupees, and lowering the age limit for senior citizens from 65 to 60 years old.

In addition, the concept of senior citizens was determined for the first time, with the threshold being citizens over 80 years old, the threshold being 500,000 rupees per year, and the threshold for women being raised to 190,000 rupees." Modi reported very seriously.

Shakru waved his hand and said, "Okay, there's no need to go into detail about these little things, let's talk about the more controversial issues." In fact, even if Modi didn't say it, Shakru could guess that there would be no problem with these items, because the impact of these items is very small, and this kind of small increase basically happens every time, and it won't cause any backlash.

"Well, the only controversial issue is to increase the tax collection efforts for small entrepreneurs. Although it caused a lot of debate on the spot, it was finally passed."

The so-called small entrepreneurs refer to one of the main groups of urban residents in India. They are typical representatives of the Indian middle class and the most active part of India's national economy. These so-called small entrepreneurs range from small shops selling cigarettes, alcohol, sugar and tea to large cross-border container trade, and the income gap is not small. But generally speaking, they are all within the scope of individual income tax collection, and how to make them pay taxes according to law has become the main task of the Indian tax department.

When shopping or consuming in India, you can always encounter the situation of "not issuing invoices and less money", which is actually one of the ways for Indian merchants to evade taxes. Therefore, this time the tax department intends to crack down on this phenomenon and increase the tax amount of small entrepreneurs.

"How was the problem of super high-income people finally solved?" Shakru asked directly about the issue he was most concerned about.

"This, this was because there were too many people who opposed it and they were too tough, so it was not resolved at this meeting. I guess we have to continue discussing it next time." Modi said a little embarrassedly.