The one chart that underlines the importance of economic reforms
India’s tax structure has become far more progressive over the years thanks to a phenomenal rise in corporate taxes since 1991
Over the past few years, a spate of high-level corruption scandals has sharply dented the credibility of Indian capitalism. The rationale for economic reforms has also been called to question, given that India’s plutocrats and politicians seem to have captured a large share of the gains from reforms. In this environment of cynicism, it is easy to forget that corporations today contribute much more to the public exchequer than they did in the pre-liberalization era.
Indeed, it is precisely because of economic liberalization that India today has a far more robust and progressive tax structure than earlier. As the accompanying chart shows, the composition of India’s tax structure has changed dramatically since the liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991.
In fiscal 1991, India’s tax system was highly dependent on indirect taxes, widely considered as more regressive than direct taxes because they affect the rich and the poor alike. Since then, the proportion of direct taxes has been steadily rising. The share of direct taxes in total taxes eclipsed the share of indirect taxes in fiscal 2007, and has remained higher ever since. The surge in direct taxes is largely because of a phenomenal increase in corporate taxes, which have grown at an annual clip of 20% since 1991, the fastest among all major categories of taxes. The share of corporate taxes alone eclipsed the share of total indirect taxes in fiscal 2009, and has remained higher since then.
The share of income taxes has also risen thanks to simplification of tax rules and better tax administration but that story is well known. The sharper rise in corporate taxes is relatively under-emphasized. Instead, after each budget, we hear stories of revenues foregone thanks to write-offs for corporations. Such stories are partial and ignore the profound transformation in India’s tax structure over the past two decades, fuelled by the rise in corporate taxes.
The surge in corporate taxes is directly linked to the freeing up of the economy, lowering of marginal tax rates, and the development of India’s capital markets since 1991. Before 1991, high tax rates and the lack of well-developed capital markets meant that most corporations and their promoters had an incentive to under-report profits or net incomes. That changed after 1991, as more companies were listed on the bourses, and Indian stock markets emerged as a key source of funds for corporations. The market capitalization of all firms listed on BSE Ltd as a proportion of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was a lowly 17% in 1991. The market-cap to GDP ratio crossed the 50% mark at the end of fiscal 2000, and reached 71% at the end of the last fiscal year.
Companies began vying with each other over the past two decades to declare higher profits to attract more investors, leading to better reporting of net incomes. The government was an indirect beneficiary of this process, as it saw its coffers swell because of higher tax revenues even as tax rates fell.
The Indian government’s ability to extract higher revenues from corporations is among the biggest success stories of the economic reforms, and one that has given the government the scope to fund ambitious social sector schemes.
It is important to recognize this success to appreciate the potential and the need for the next round of economic reforms.
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