India, Jan. 31 -- It is a yearly occurrence in the run-up to the budget, but this year, the chorus for a more rational income tax regime has been louder (including by some of this newspaper's columnists). This isn't surprising. The fact is India's direct tax base is extremely narrow. Sure, 75.4 million people filed tax returns (for 2023-24), but 47.3 million of these involved no payment of tax, and 2.4 million paid more than 50% of the total income tax collected. Similarly, 678 companies in 2021-22 (more recent data is not available, but the trend is likely to have only become stronger), accounted for 55% of the total corporate tax collected (the base is around 1.03 million companies). And the argument that the poor bear a disproportionate share of the indirect tax burden - some NGOs have voiced this - doesn't stand up to even a cursory scrutiny of the methodology and the actual numbers. It is the so-called consuming classes that carry the load, just like they do in the case of direct taxes. Clearly, efforts to broaden the tax base have not really worked....