1.07 crore new taxpayers added in financial year in 2018: CBDT

The Income Tax department said Thursday it added 1.07 crore new taxpayers while the number of ‘dropped filers' came down to 25.22 lakh in 2017-18, showing the positive impact of demonetisation.

In a statement, the Central Board Of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said 6.87 crore Income Tax Returns (ITRs) were filed during FY 2017-18 as compared to 5.48 crore ITRs filed during FY 2016-17, translating into a growth of 25 per cent.

Also, during FY 2017-18, the number of new ITR filers increased to 1.07 crore as compared to 86.16 lakh new ITR filers added during FY 2016-17, it added.

“Demonetization had a phenomenal positive impact on the widening of tax base and direct tax collections,” CBDT said.

Dropped Filers, which is defined as a person who was earlier in the filer base but has not filed return in any of the last three financial years, declined in 2017-18 to 25.22 lakh from 28.34 lakh in 2016-17.

"The net direct tax collections for 2017-18 amounted to Rs 10.03 lakh crore, which is 18% higher than the collections for 2016-17. The growth rate of 18 per cent for 2017-18 is the highest in the last seven financial years. A substantial part of this growth is attributed to the impact of demonetization,” CBDT said.

The government had in November 2016 demonetised high value currency notes of 500 and 1000 denominations to crack down on black money.