Tax rates for companies in India are among the highest in the world and the number of payments is also more than the global average, putting the country at a low 158th rank on the ‘Paying Taxes 2014’ list.

However, the time taken for tax payments is relatively less in India, which is rated ahead of China and Japan where it takes 318 hours and 330 hours, respectively, to comply with tax regulations, according to a World Bank and PwC report.

According to the report, the total tax rate in India can be as high as 62.8 per cent, there are as many as 33 payments under the head of profit, labour and other taxes, and the time taken to comply with taxation requirements could be as much as 243 hours.

On a global average, a company takes 268 hours to pay taxes, makes 26.7 payments and has a total tax rate of 43.1 per cent.

India was placed 158th position in the overall ranking of paying taxes, above Brazil (159th) and below the Russian Federation (56th) and China, which was ranked 120th.

The United Arab Emirates was in first place, followed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia in second and third positions in the overall ranking.

The report noted that in South Asia, India is the only economy (of eight) with a complete online system for filing and paying taxes.

In the Asia Pacific region, in the past year, the Maldives and Sri Lanka have introduced online platforms for filing and paying labour contributions, easing the administrative burden of complying with labour regulations, the report noted.

Over the past nine years, China registered the largest drop in the number of tax heads, with a fall of 28 payments, followed by India and Malaysia, which each reduced payments by 22.

The most common reason for the reduction in the number of payments is the introduction and improvement of electronic filing systems along with their adoption by taxpayers, the report said.

Paying Taxes 2014 investigates and compares tax regimes across 189 economies worldwide, ranking them according to the relative ease of paying taxes. The period covered by the study was 2004 to 2012.

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