Mayank Krishna observes some hard facts about Indian corporates.

I really fell from my chair on knowing that Reliance Industries pays much less tax (as a percentage of income) than what I pay. Yes, Reliance Industries paid just 8.41% of PBT as tax in 2005-06. To know how much tax some of the well known companies in India pay, see the graphics below (click and open in a new window for enlarged image).

At Alternative Perspective, Madhukar takes off from this somewhat older post (written in Feb) and adds some insightful observations on the topic.

According to Kelkar Committee Report on Direct Taxes (2003) almost 2/3rd taxes remain unpaid due to “legal leaks in the system”. This tax evasion happens through “legal leaks”, i.e., the loopholes in the tax laws, the exemptions and the incentives. If one adds the outright fraud, the loss to the exchequer will be many-fold.