Calling for the introduction of a wealth tax, a report has revealed that a 2%–6% levy on 1,688 ultra-rich individuals in India could generate over ₹10 lakh crore annually for welfare spending, challenging the government’s claim of limited resources.
The report, “Wealth Tracker India 2026,” released by the Centre for Financial Accountability and the Tax the Top campaign, found that the combined wealth of India’s richest families, including Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Savitri Jindal, Sunil Mittal, and Shiv Nadar, grew by nearly 400% between 2019 and 2025.
“Today India is witnessing inequality at levels that are comparable to colonial times,” the report noted.
The number of dollar billionaires in India has risen sharply from just one in 1991 to over 358 by 2025. Today, 1,688 individuals with assets exceeding ₹1,000 crore collectively hold wealth worth over ₹166 lakh crore, nearly 50% of the country’s GDP.
The report highlighted that the top 1% increased their share of wealth from 36.5% in 2019 to 40.1% in 2022, while the bottom 50% saw a slight decline from 6.8% to 6.4% over the same period.
Between 2019 and 2025, the number of individuals with assets exceeding ₹1,000 crore grew by 77%, while their total wealth surged by a staggering 227%.
Their combined wealth rose from approximately ₹31 lakh crore in 2019 to around ₹88 lakh crore in 2025.
The report further highlighted that the combined wealth of Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani and family, Savitri Jindal and family, Sunil Mittal and family, and Shiv Nadar increased by nearly 400% during this period. Individually, Ambani’s wealth grew by 153%, while Adani’s wealth rose sharply by 625%.
“It is thereby crucial that we articulate the demand for taxing the ultra rich in a language that connects with the masses,” they said.
This, it said, would enable increased public spending, including raising health and education expenditure by 1% of GDP each, and providing a monthly pension of ₹12,000, half of a living wage, to all elderly citizens, many of whom currently receive just ₹200 per month from the central government.
“A 2% Wealth Tax on Ambani can translate into free laptops to approximately 1.85 crore Class 10 students three times!,” they said.
The report noted that a 2% wealth tax on Mukesh Ambani could finance nearly two years of universal maternity support for 2.85 crore women, while a similar tax on Gautam Adani could fund over two years of nationwide primary healthcare or provide 87 crore free LPG cylinders, and a 2% tax on Savitri Jindal could support several years of Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste scholarships.
The findings challenge the government’s claim that there are insufficient resources to expand welfare spending.
The report criticised tax cuts for corporations, noting that ordinary individuals are now bearing a heavier tax burden than large companies. It also highlighted that ₹19.6 lakh crore in loans have been written off over the past 11 years.
Referring to a global inequality panel commissioned by the G20 and led by Joseph Stiglitz, the report noted that rising inequality is a “policy choice” that can be reversed through progressive taxation and redistributive measures.
It highlighted that such discussions are largely absent in India’s policy space, even as wealth concentration increases and the country moves away from its constitutional commitment to reducing inequality. It also pointed out that the wealth tax in India was abolished in 2016.
Calling for urgent action, the report urged the implementation of a wealth tax to reduce the gap between the ultra-rich and the poor and to ensure that basic needs of citizens are met through expanded welfare measures.
Highlighting the deepening inequality in India, Anirban Bhattacharya from Campaigns Director at the Centre for Financial Accountability, said, “There are two Indias today. One of the handful at the top whose wealth has been soaring by lakhs of crores. And another India that is indebted, precariously employed, and largely from marginalised sections struggling to make their ends meet. The wider this gap, the farther the idea of India in the Constitution goes away.”
“Over the last decade, people are being told to survive without asking questions, from demonetisation to the pandemic and now the LPG-coal crisis,” said Raj Shekhar of the Tax the Top campaign, adding that “it is hardworking Indians who are on the roads and standing in queues, while in the same period, a handful of India’s super rich have been given free passes to continue their loot.”
“It is the need of the hour to impose a wealth tax on them to generate the resources required to strengthen public services and address the inequality that threatens democracy,” he asserted.
Jacob Joshy, a researcher associated with the report, noted that wealth concentration has reached alarming levels but remains largely absent from policy debates.
“Grotesque inequality is now normalised. Wealth tax is no magic bullet, but as the report suggests, it can universalise basic rights for the poor,” he noted.
The Tax the Top campaign, driven by people’s movements, trade unions, and civil society groups, has been advocating for wealth and inheritance taxes on the super-rich to generate resources for universal social and economic rights.
The Centre for Financial Accountability works at the intersection of research and activism, aiming to make economic issues accessible while strengthening financial accountability.
This article was originally published in MaktoobMedia and you can read here.
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