A new report published in March 2026 by the Centre for Financial Accountability and the Tax The Top campaign paints a stark picture of deepening economic disparity in India, documenting a concentration of wealth that it argues is “comparable to colonial times.” Titled Wealth Tracker India | Tax the Top. Close the Gap, the compilation presents data from the World Inequality Database and the Hurun Rich List to illustrate the meteoric rise of the ultra-wealthy alongside the stagnation and debt burdens of the majority.
The report’s central proposition is a comprehensive system of progressive wealth and inheritance taxes on the country’s richest individuals, which it claims could generate over ₹10 lakh crore annually—resources it argues are essential for guaranteeing fundamental social and economic rights.
According to the report, the inequality trends are stark and have been shaped by policy choices. Drawing on a century of data, it notes that while wealth inequality fell sharply after independence, it has surged since the adoption of neoliberal economic policies in the 1990s. “The cliff for the red line was steeper around independence and the rise in the 1990s and the 21st century has been far more meteoric,” the document states, describing this as “an outcome of the adoption of the neoliberal path that meant the slow withdrawal of the state from its redistributive and regulatory role.”
The report cites World Inequality Database figures showing that the share of wealth held by the top 1% in India rose from 36.5% in 2019 to a steady 40.1% by 2022, while the bottom 50% saw their share shrink from 6.8% to 6.4% over the same period. This divergence accelerated during the pandemic, with the report noting that “the wealth of Indian billionaires increased by 35 percent during the lockdown,” and that one leading industrialist was “making INR 90 crore per hour” while a significant portion of the population earned under ₹3,000 per month.
The report tracks the explosive growth among the super-rich using the Hurun Rich List, highlighting that between 2019 and 2025, the number of individuals with a net worth of ₹1,000 crore or more grew by 77%, but their combined wealth surged by 227%, from approximately ₹31 lakh crore to ₹88 lakh crore. By 2025, the list included 1,688 such individuals with a cumulative wealth of ₹166 lakh crore—a figure the report notes represents “nearly 50% of India’s GDP.” The wealth of the top five billionaires combined increased by roughly 400% over the same six-year period.
The report singles out two individuals in particular, documenting that one saw his wealth increase by 153% to ₹9.15 lakh crore, while another’s grew by 625% to ₹8.02 lakh crore. “In just five years, the top 100 accumulated wealth equal to several Union Budgets,” the report emphasizes, noting that this occurred while millions faced job insecurity and rising living costs.
The analysis also delves into the caste dimensions of this wealth concentration. Citing findings from the World Inequality Lab, the report states, “Drawing on Forbes billionaire rankings coded by caste surname, the World Inequality Lab found that in 2022-23, nearly 90% of all billionaire wealth in India was held by upper castes.
Scheduled Tribes had zero representation. OBCs held just under 10%, and Scheduled Castes a meagre 2.6%.” It further notes that this concentration has deepened in the last decade, with the OBC share of billionaire wealth being cut in half between 2014 and 2022. This top-level disparity, the report argues, mirrors broader national patterns, where upper castes, comprising just over a quarter of the population, own nearly 55% of the country’s total wealth.
To address this inequality, the report presents a detailed case for reintroducing a wealth tax, which was abolished in India in 2016. It argues that the standard rebuttals against such a tax are unfounded. “First, consider the idea that taxing the rich damages the investment climate and discourages wealth creation,” the report states, countering that “economies grow when there is demand.
Public spending—funded through taxation—puts money in people’s hands, increases consumption, and creates the very conditions businesses need to invest and expand.” It points to historical evidence, noting that “in the mid-20th century, particularly between 1940 and 1980, countries like the United States and those in Europe experienced some of their highest growth rates—at a time when tax rates on the wealthy were significantly higher than they are today.”
The report outlines several taxation scenarios, using concrete examples to illustrate the potential revenue. A 2% annual wealth tax on the richest 100 individuals alone, it calculates, could have generated between ₹0.63 lakh crore and ₹1.86 lakh crore each year between 2019 and 2025. For context, it notes that a 2% tax on the top 10 richest individuals would yield ₹0.77 lakh crore, an amount nearly matching the entire union budget allocation for rural development.
The report then proposes a more progressive model for the 1,688 families with wealth of ₹1,000 crore or more, suggesting marginal tax rates ranging from 2% on wealth up to ₹25,000 crore to 6% on wealth exceeding ₹1,00,000 crore. Combined with a proposed one-third inheritance tax on annual wealth transfers, the report estimates a total revenue of ₹7.44 lakh crore. Factoring in multiplier effects from public spending, it argues this could translate into an effective fiscal capacity of “approximately ₹10.63 lakh crore annually.”
The report translates these figures into three concrete spending scenarios.
The first scenario proposes allocating ₹3.5 lakh crore each to education and health, raising their budgets by 1% of GDP each, and ₹3.6 lakh crore for a social security pension scheme, which would increase the central government’s contribution from a “shameful ₹200 per month” to ₹12,000 per month for the elderly.
A second scenario focuses on economic support, including ₹3.94 lakh crore to expand MGNREGA by raising wages by an additional ₹500 per day, ₹4.49 lakh crore for climate adaptation to meet the estimated 1.3% of GDP requirement, and ₹40,000 crore to run community kitchens to address the “raging LPG crisis.”
A third scenario combines climate adaptation, old-age pensions, support for street vendors, and a ₹50,000 subsidy per household to support rooftop solar for over two crore families. Common to two of the scenarios is an allocation of ₹1.5 lakh crore to expand minimum support price (MSP) procurement across crops.
The report concludes by framing the demand for a wealth tax as a fundamental political choice. “Wealth tax is of course no magic bullet,” it states, but it is a necessary step toward “actualizing the spirit of the Constitution” and reversing a neoliberal doctrine that prioritizes profit over people.
Published by the Centre for Financial Accountability and the Tax The Top campaign, the document positions itself as a tool for social movements, intended to make the demand for taxing the super-rich “more tangible, more legible.” It ends with a call for a shift in political will, asking whether the nation will continue on a path of “super-profits for the super-rich” or adopt an alternative, pro-people vision that ensures well-being for the masses.
This article was originally published in Counterview and you can read here.
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