India’s ultra-rich make it to rich lists, but go missing from income-tax data

That India is rapidly producing ultra-rich individuals is known. Multiple international agencies track their numbers and wealth – some call them “Dollar Millionaires,” some “Dollar Billionaires” while the recently-released Hurun India Rich List for 2025 has defined those with a wealth of Rs 1,000 crore and more (as of September 22, 2025) as ultra-rich.

Ultra-rich and their worth

Per Hurun, the number of these Indians and their cumulative wealth are steadily rising – from 1,013 individuals with a cumulative wealth of Rs 100 lakh crore in 2022, 1,319 individuals with Rs 109 lakh crore in 2023, 1,539 individuals with Rs 159 lakh crore in 2024, to 1,683 individuals with a cumulative wealth of Rs 167 lakh crore in 2025. The average wealth of these ultra-rich Indians works out to a whopping Rs 10,000 crore.

Also read: Hurun India Rich List 2025 reveals what’s wrong with India’s growth model

Now, assume their annual income is 10 per cent of their wealth. This would mean the rich Indians mentioned in Hurun’s list would be declaring an annual income of Rs 1,000 crore (10 per cent of Rs 10,000 crore). But does the Income Tax Return (ITR) data corroborate this? Here is a reality check.

The only plausible answer to the large number of rich and ultra-rich Indians missing from the tax data, as the above analysis shows, is that they are under-reporting their incomes and evading tax. This isn’t a revelation, but rather a confirmation of what has always been known.

Ultra-rich go missing from tax records

Tax authorities provide income levels declared in the ITRs. Such data are available only up to the assessment year of 2023-24 (AY24), which pertains to the incomes earned in FY23. For example, AY23, the year of tax assessment, would mention incomes earned in FY22.

But the tax data doesn’t provide ITRs claiming income of Rs 1,000 crore when we sit down to cross-check how many of Hurun’s ultra-rich Indians are actually filing returns. The last entry in the tax tables is “over” Rs 500 crore (of income claimed in a particular year). And these tables are available for up to the assessment year of 2023-24 (AY24), which is for the incomes earned in FY23. Now check the Hurun’s Indians' income of Rs 1,000 crore and those declaring income over Rs 500 crore.

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Discrepancies in data

Indeed, the years mapped by Hurun and the tax assessment or the fiscals for which these assessments are made are not identical. Hurun’s wealth estimation is at a point in the year when it releases the data, typically a few days or weeks before the data is actually made public. For example, Hurun’s 2025 list was made public on October 1, 2025, with the declaration that the wealth estimates were “as on September 22, 2025”.

As explained earlier, India’s tax data are for the April-March period – the same as the fiscal period. Thus, a common ground needs to be fixed for convenience. For the current exercise, the Hurun’s data for a particular year is being compared with the related Indian fiscal years (when the income is earned). This means Hurun’s 2025 data are matched with ITRs for FY25 (which would be assessed for tax in AY26).

No transparency in income declaration

And since the FY24 and FY25 ITRs are not available, this matching would be for earlier years of 2022 and 2023. Here are the results:

• Against 1,013 Indians in Hurun’s 2022 list (with annual income of Rs 1,000 crore), only 904 Indians declared income over Rs 500 crore for FY22 (AY23) in the ITRs.

• Against 1,319 Indians in Hurun’s 2023 list, only 908 declared over Rs 500 crore of income in FY23 (AY24).

It should be noted that fewer Indians claimed an income of over Rs 500 crore in both FY22 and FY23. Though the further disaggregated data is not available, it can be safely assumed that the ITR numbers (for over Rs 500 crore income) would have a large number of those declaring income between Rs 500 (plus Rs 1) and Rs 1,000 crore (minus Rs 1). Had those numbers been available, the gap between the Hurun’s ultra-rich Indians and those declaring income of Rs 1,000 crore or more would have been much wider.

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Nonetheless, many of the Hurun’s ultra-rich Indians are not declaring their income correctly. This anomaly would be clear later.

India’s Dollar Millionaires

While Hurun tracks ultra-rich Indians with wealth of Rs 1,000 crore and more, the Swiss multinational investment bank UBS tracks India’s Dollar Millionaires and those spread globally. Dollar Millionaires in India are Indians with a wealth of Rs 8.8 crore (at the exchange rate of Rs 88 per USD). It is to be noted that UBS took over Credit Suisse Bank in 2024.

UBS’s last report came in June 2025, called Global Wealth Report 2025. It said India had 9.2 lakh Dollar Millionaires. Unlike Hurun’s, the UBS’s wealth estimates are for the previous years. That is, its 2025 report gives wealth estimations for 2024.

According to UBS reports from the past seven years, India had 7.3 lakh Dollar Millionaires in 2018, 9.1 lakh in 2019, 6.9 lakh in 2020, 8 lakh in 2021, 8.5 lakh in 2022, 8.7 lakh in 2023, and 9.2 lakh in 2024.

Their annual income can be assumed to be 10 per cent of their wealth.

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Here is another difficulty. The rupee’s exchange rate has been rising over the years. So, consider the average exchange rate between FY19 (coinciding with the UBS’s 2018 wealth estimate, released in 2019) and FY24 – using the data provided by the Economic Survey of 2024-25. The average works out to be Rs 75.5 per USD. At this rate, a Dollar Millionaire's wealth would amount to Rs 7.55 crore. At 10 per cent, the annual income of a Dollar Millionaire would be Rs 75.5 lakh.

Missing income declarations

The ITRs don’t have an income slab for Rs 75 lakh.

The following results emerge when we compare it with Indians who declared income over Rs 50 lakh (excluding UBS’s 2025 report, giving data for 2024 because the ITR numbers are available until FY23 or AY24):

• Against UBS’s 7.3 lakh Indian Dollar Millionaires for 2018 (its 2019 report), only 4.3 lakh Indians declared income above Rs 50 lakh in FY18 (3 lakh missing).

• For 2019, the respective numbers were 9.1 lakh and 5 lakh (4.1 lakh missing).

• For 2020, the respective numbers were 6.9 lakh and 5.3 lakh (1.6 lakh missing).

• For 2021, the respective numbers were 8 lakh and 5.7 lakh (2.3 lakh missing).

• For 2022, the respective numbers were 8.5 lakh and 7.9 lakh (0.6 lakh missing).

• For 2023, the respective numbers were 8.7 lakh and 8.6 lakh (0.1 lakh missing).

(Note: This comparison is for those declaring income of over Rs 50 lakh – which would have many individuals with income levels between Rs 50 lakh (plus Rs 1) and Rs 75.5 lakh (minus Rs 1). If those numbers are known, the missing dollar millionaires from the ITRs would rise from the current average of Rs 1.95 lakh in those six years.)

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Under-reportage of income, tax evasion

The only plausible answer to the large number of rich and ultra-rich Indians missing from the tax data, as the above analysis shows, is that they are under-reporting their incomes and evading tax. This isn’t a revelation, but rather a confirmation of what has always been known. Former (late) finance minister Arun Jaitley had called India a “tax non-compliant society”.

While referring to AY2016-17 ITRs (for incomes earned in FY16), here is what he said in his budget speech of February 1, 2018:

“Of the 76 lakh individual assesses who declare income above Rs 5 lakh, 56 lakh are in the salaried class. The number of people showing income more than Rs 50 lakh in the entire country is only 1.72 lakh. We can contrast this with the fact that in the last five years, more than 1.25 crore cars have been sold, and the number of Indian citizens who flew abroad, either for business or tourism, is two crore in the year 2015. From all these figures we can conclude that we are largely a tax non-compliant society.”

Also read: Centre’s indirect tax reforms yielded limited gains, did little to boost growth

We must note the distinction Jaitley made between the salaried class and the business class. Here is more.

Salaried bear the burden

The salaried class gets their income after the tax is already deducted at source (TDS). At present, they pay 30 per cent income tax once their income threshold crosses Rs 10 lakh (old regime, with exemptions and deductions) and Rs 15 lakh (new regime, without exemptions and deductions).

But for businesses that make much more money than salaried, the income tax (corporate tax) bars are far lower. These are the individuals who populate the entire Hurun’s ultra-rich Indians’ list and form the bigger chunk of the UBS’s Dollar Millionaires.

Big businesses enjoy plenty of tax and non-tax incentives, substantially reducing their tax burden, never mind the rhetoric about the new corporate tax regime of a lower tax rate with no incentives and deductions.

Such benign income tax rates are available for both small and big businesses. They pay their tax once in every quarter (unlikely monthly TDS for salaried). Plus, businesses pay income tax (i) on their profits (with some exceptions mentioned later) and (ii) after deducting their expenses – a privilege not available to the salaried.

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Smaller businesses with an annual turnover of up to Rs 2 crore (self-declared) don’t require to maintain account books; they pay “presumptive tax” of 8 per cent on their total turnover as per norms in the Income Tax Act of 1962. Under the GST Act of 2017, goods manufacturers with annual revenue of up to Rs 1.5 crore and service providers up to Rs 50 lakh of annual revenue pay a “composite” tax at 1 per cent.

Big corporations pay a peak rate of 22 per cent tax (on their profits after deducting expenses) and new manufacturing units 15 per cent (on their profits, after deducting expenses) – since the corporate tax cut of 2019.

Bigger business, lesser tax

Big businesses enjoy plenty of tax and non-tax incentives, substantially reducing their tax burden, never mind the rhetoric about the new corporate tax regime of lower tax rate with no incentives and deductions. The budget documents reveal the dark realities. For example, here is what the budget documents of 2025-26 show about the “effective tax rate” (tax-to-profit ratio): Bigger the profit-making company lesser the tax.

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The budget documents of 2025-26 give the following data for FY23.

Effective tax rate for corporates making more than Rs 500 crore profit before tax (PBT) is 19 per cent. But for those making lower profits, it climbs progressively to a maximum for those who make the least profits:

• For PBT of Rs 100-500 crore, the tax is 21.75 per cent

• For PBT of Rs 30-100 crore, the tax is 22.4 per cent

• For PBT of Rs 10-50 crore, the tax is 22.79 per cent

• For PBT of Rs 1-10 crore, the tax is 23.97 per cent

• For PBT of Rs 0-1 crore, the tax is 24.52 per cent

The budget explains: “This highlights that the larger companies are availing the higher deductions and incentives or have shifted to the new regime of lower tax rate of 22 per cent plus cess and surcharge.”

Unexplained anomalies

The trends in the effective tax rates and the budget document’s explanation remains unchanged for more than a decade. Yet, no corrective measures have been taken.

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The budget documents have stopped telling how many corporations have actually “shifted” to the new regime, nor care to explain how or why “the larger companies are availing the higher deductions and incentives”. After Jaitley, no other finance minister has called out the massive tax evasion by the rich and ultra-rich Indians either.