As per report released by the Income Tax department, the following are the highlights of the Financial Year 2020-2021, the year of the pandemic.
- Salary increase across the country was moderate
- The GDP shrank by 5.8%. 1% of GDP is around 1,75,000 Crores, so, the country’s GDP fell by 10,15,000 Crores.
- Short Term Capital Gains increased by almost 166% year-on-year as compared to previous year.
- 54% of the 1,67,00,000 people who filed Income Tax Return showed that they did not receive any salary during this financial year.
- There were 8 individuals across the country with a salary range of 100-500 Crores.
- There were 40 individuals across the country with 50-100 Crore salary range.
- There were 163 individuals in the 25-50 Crore salary range.
What does the sudden spurt in Short Term Capital Gains tell you?
It tells a story of extreme distress, where people sold their properties and assets which they had planned to keep over the long term and had to thus book the profits under the short term capital gains tax. This tells that the decision to survive was upper than the decision to somehow save capital gains tax.
A good government would have waived off short term capital gains tax for citizens with a gain of less than 25,00,000 to provide them with relief.
But this is Modi Sarkar. It wants as much money as people can give. It even floated a PMCares Fund which turned out to be a private fund run by Narendra Modi and his cabinet ministers in their personal capacities.