Dearest Prime Minister Modi,

I am writing this petition out of great hope that only you can bring in this major change of abolishing income tax for salaried class who are bearing a huge burden for the growth of Bharat.

You are well aware of the plight of middle class who need to take care of their parents, children and also manage living in cities with high cost of living.

School/college fees, Medical expenses, rents, real estate prices have hit over the roof and killing all our savings. Without savings, we cannot live a dignified retirement life and we may have to work beyond 60 years also.

Salaried class have to pay tax in every walk of their life. Take my case, I fall in 30% tax bracket. Every month, employer does TDS and gives my salary. So, my salary is already 30% less. 4 months of my earnings from  hardwork given to Government every year.

With this, we have to take care of 2 kids education which is very expensive in Bengaluru with even a normal private schools charging Rs. 1.25 lakhs for tuitions fees and hiking by 15% to 20% every year. Books, uniform, extra-curricular activities and transportation is extra. Overall, we spend Rs. 2 lakh minimum per child for their education every year. That is Rs.4 lakhs.  To pay Rs.4 lakhs my earnings should be of Rs. 5.7 lakhs as I have to pay Rs.1.7 lakhs tax. Govt. of India is my third child now.

Coming to real estate, there is no property which costs less than Rs.1 CR in Bengaluru. There is a GST of 5% and registration charges of another 6%. Total taxes here is 11% and there is no difference between income tax payers and non-payers. Not even a 1% discount. So, government is getting 30% income tax plus 11% other taxes. My total tax outgo is now 41% in case of real estate. That is almost 5 months of earnings, which I am giving to Government.

About healthcare, due to high medical treatment costs we are going with private insurance but Govt. of India is charging 18% GST on the premium. This is really very sad that we are taxed for taking health insurance which is actually saving the Government from taking burden of our health. So here, my tax outgo is 30% + 18% = 48% of my income. That is half of my earnings or 6 months salary.

There are many items where there is GST up to 28% which takes my tax outgo up to 58%, which is more than 7 months of my salary. On an average, 5 months of salary just goes towards taxes. 

It is more unfair that only a small percentage of Indians have to bear this brunt. The data shows that 7.4 crore people filed income tax returns in 2022-23, of which 5.16 crore people, or 70 per cent, had zero tax liability. This means that just 2.24 crore people paid income tax in 2022-23, which works out to just about 1.6 per cent of the total population in India.

Poor people pay no tax. Agriculturists pay no tax. Business can claim expenses like petrol, air travel, bank interest, car depreciation, restaurant bills etc. But salaried class have to pay double tax ( Income Tax, GST, Excise, property tax, registration tax, road tolls ) for everything. Middle class is overburdened and their back is about to break!

At the end of our retirement due to all the taxes we have paid, we will be having very little to spend in this high inflation environment and middle class cannot expect anything back from the government. It is better to be poor in Bharat as we can get many freebies!

It is time to bring in a uniform tax structure and do away with this discrimination of targeting only 1.6% of Indians.

Please requesting you to stop this discrimination!

Please help us!

Regards,
Aggrieved but honest Income Tax Payer