JHARKHAND: MS Dhoni may have long hung up his wicketkeeper’s gloves, but he is still scoring records. The former India cricket captain has emerged as the highest individual taxpayer across Jharkhand and Bihar combined for the financial year 2025-26, even as the income tax department’s total collection from the two states came in at around Rs 20,000 crore.
D Sudhakara Rao, principal chief commissioner of income tax for Bihar and Jharkhand, made the announcement while addressing the media in Ranchi on Thursday. “The total collection from Bihar and Jharkhand during the financial year 2025-26 was around Rs 20,000 crore, of which Rs 12,000 crore was collected only from Jharkhand,” he said. Rao declined to disclose Dhoni’s actual tax figure.
Around 70 per cent of the total collection came through tax deduction at source. On the corporate side, Central Coalfields Limited, Bharat Coking Coal Limited and CMPDI were among the biggest payers.
The numbers could have been better. Rao noted that heavy rains had disrupted mining activity during the year, denting collections. He was, however, optimistic: “We hope to exceed the Rs 20,000 crore mark in tax collection during the current financial year.”
The compliance picture, though, tells a sobering story. Of the roughly 5.5 crore PAN card holders across Bihar and Jharkhand, only 40 lakh actually file returns. That is a compliance rate of barely seven per cent, a gap the department will need to close if it wants to meaningfully grow the tax base.
Earlier in the day, Rao chaired a meeting with more than 100 income tax officers from both states on the new Income Tax Act, 2025, which came into force on April 1st, replacing the six-decade-old Income Tax Act, 1961. “The new Act marks a shift towards greater clarity and ease of compliance through simple language, a streamlined structure and a reader-friendly presentation, without altering the underlying tax policy,” he said. Outreach programmes for bankers, PSUs and others are planned across both states.
For a region where millions hold PAN cards but few pay up, the taxman’s work is clearly far from over.
