evidence: Of the total 6.77 crore individual income tax return (ITR) filers for the financial year 2022-23, 4.65 crore people reportedly paid zero tax. This means more than half of the people who filed ITR till July 31, 2023 (the deadline for filing ITR for FY22-23 without penalty) were either not eligible to pay tax or paid no tax. To put into perspective, while the number of people filing ITRs has significantly increased, the number of people with zero tax liability has also risen. The number of people filing returns amounting to zero tax liability stood at 2.9 crore in FY2019-20, according to Finance Ministry data. [...] Out of the 6.77 crore ITRs filed for AY 2023-24, 49.18 percent of ITRs were ITR-1 (3.33 crore), 11.97 percent were ITR-2 (81.12 lakh), 11.13 percent were ITR-3 (75.40 lakh), 26.77 percent were ITR-4 (1.81 crore) and 0.94 percent were ITR-5 to 7 (6.40 lakh). Over 46 percent of these ITRs were filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the balance has been filed using offline ITR utilities, the department said.