Do wealthy Indians pay enough tax?

India’s richest are hiding in plain sight and getting away with it. A shocking new study reveals that India’s top 0.1% report just 1% of their wealth as income. That’s not a typo. Despite tighter laws, AI surveillance, and faceless tax filing systems, the ultra-rich are barely paying their dues, while middle-class Indians shoulder the burden. Why isn’t the system catching them? How big is the gap? And what does it mean for your money and the economy? This explosive investigation has the answers. Don’t miss it, because the numbers will leave you stunned.   We know intuitively that people do not report their incomes truthfully; they, thus, save on paying their tax dues. This is a problem everywhere, not just in India. Newspapers in India routinely report every year who the highest-income taxpayers are. These lists tend to be full of film stars, cricketers and such celebrities – people who are fairly well off but not the wealthiest Indians. Why aren’t the wealthiest Indians on these lists of the highest taxpayers? Seeing these inconsistencies made economist and director of the Delhi School of Economics, Prof Ram Singh, too, wonder why the wealthiest Indians are not the highest taxpayers and vice versa. And so began his research on the subject. He built data sets from statistics published by the income tax department and the disclosures about income and wealth that contesta

This article was originally published on July 01, 2025.