Maharashtra tops the list of states in direct tax collection, shows data from the ministry of finance. For 2015-16, the state’s direct tax collection amounted to Rs 2.88 lakh crore, which was 39.47 per cent of the total taxes collected across states, according to information provided to Parliament by Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar.

Direct taxes in India include personal income tax, corporation tax and securities transaction tax. The minister in his reply said that for indirect taxes such as excise, Custom levies and Value Added Tax, data had not been collected on a per-state basis.

Maharashtra was followed by Delhi, which had direct tax collections of Rs 1.02 lakh crore, or about 11.82 per cent of the total. These two states put together account for 53.44 per cent of direct taxes in India.

To put that in perspective, Maharashtra’s share of India’s national output is around 15 per cent and Delhi’s 4 per cent. To be sure, the share of a state in Gross Domestic Product can’t exactly be mapped to their share of tax contributions.

Delhi, the country’s national capital, and Mumbai, the financial capital of India, are homes to the country’s biggest corporations and its richest income-earners.

That also perhaps explains why states such as Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, whose share of national output are around 7.8 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively, have lower share of direct tax collections. Gujarat accounts for 4.67 per cent and Tamil Nadu 6.75 per cent of total direct tax collection across states.