Top Indian wealth shares and inheritances 1966–1985

Abstract

Between 1953 and 1985 India implemented various progressive taxes on personal wealth. I use estate tax returns to compute top wealth shares (top 1%, top 0.1% and top 0.01%) over 1966-1985; a period marked explicitly by a dirigiste policy environment. These new series suggest that wealth concentration in India reduced substantially during the 1970s. Although the decline affected the entire top 1%, the losses faced by the top 0.01% were especially large. Combined with identical trends in top income shares, it appears that the 1950-1980 expropriations of India's rich had similarities to institutional transitions and shocks faced by European elites in the early to mid twentieth century.

Welfare Reforms and the Leviathan State

“…This argument, however, is a misplaced because family trusts typically comprise of bank accounts and equity shares with unrealized capital gains. A study based upon the revenues from 'estate tax'-taxes on large bequests-in place between 1953 and 1986 suggests a significant 'wealth leveling' during the period (Kumar 2020), and the findings concur with that of Banerjee and Piketty (2005) who study income inequality in India during this period.…”

The sky and the stratosphere: concentrated wealth in India during the last (lost) decade

“…anything, direct taxes on Indian wealth were abolished in 2015 after becoming effectively defunct for several decades. The general direction of tax policy in India since the mid 1980s has been pro-rich, with previous tax codes on inheritance, wealth and Top incomes, either dismantled or reduced via lower Top marginal rates (Kumar, 2020). We rule out redistribution through taxation.…”