new delhi feb 3 finance minister arun jaitley today justified levy of 10 per cent surcharge on rich saying the resources in a largely nontax compliant society will have to come from the more affluent reading out taxpayer data he said excluding salaried class there are only 20 lakh people who voluntarily declare their income of over rs 5 lakh in a year in a nontax compliant society the state needs resources and the resources will have to come from the more affluent as far as the tax structure is concerned there is a social equity also behind this he said at a postbudget interaction with the industry chambers here he had in his budget for 201718 proposed a levy of 10 per cent surcharge on top of the peak rate of tax on individuals with income between rs 50 lakh and rs 1 crore annually he retained the 15 per cent surcharge on those having over rs 1crore annual income at the same time he halved to 5 per cent the basic tax rate for those earning between rs 25 lakh and rs 5 lakh income the taxation approach is also absolutely clear our steps against shadow economy would continue and thats why we put a cap of rs 3 lakh on cash transactions he said with the implementation of goods and service tax gst the scope for generation of black money itself will become more difficult hopefully with the steps that the department of revenue has taken and the demonetisation i think it is significantly going to change the pattern of spending behaviour as far as consumers are concerned he said jaitley said normally budgets are known for imposing higher taxation but except for imposing surcharge on individual with income between rs 50 lakh and rs 1 crore in the budget for 201718 there is an equity in the wealthy paying more i have also in the budget document consciously given some data to indicate how much of a noncompliant society we are he said adding the effort of the government is to make the society more taxcompliant if we keep those 56 lakh salaried assessees out the voluntary tax payers above rs 5 lakh income which includes the whole body of business people traders professionals lawyers doctors you will find there are only 20 lakh people in the country who declare voluntarily an income over rs 5 lakh it is something which is absolutely incredible and therefore the fact is that more and more people have to be incentivised to get into the tax net he said more jd mkj