Evolution of India’s tax burden: Progressive with a caveat | Number Theory

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India will become the world’s third largest economy in a couple of years. It will still lag by a distance when it comes to average incomes. India’s per capita GDP in current dollar terms – the same yardstick which will make it third largest by size of GDP – is ranked 144 in 2025. To be sure, even China, which is already the world’s second largest in terms of GDP ranks 78 on per capita GDP. The mismatch between size of the economy and per capita incomes makes the question of tax burden an extremely important one in India. More so because it is also a democracy. The evolution of India’s tax burden – as seen in central taxes – makes for an extremely interesting study. Here are four charts which summarise this.

For representational purposes only.(Reuters)

Evolution of India’s tax burden: Progressive with a caveat

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