Bengaluru, a lakhpati hub: Karnataka beats all states to top taxpayer charts

Karnataka has emerged as the state with the highest share of “lakhpati” taxpayers, and Bengaluru, India's Silicon Valley is at the heart of this growth.

According to a Times of India report, which cites data shared by the Ministry of Finance in the Lok Sabha, more than one in five income tax filers in Karnataka declared an annual income between ₹12 lakh and ₹50 lakh.

This puts the state at the top of the nationwide list, ahead of Telangana and Jharkhand.

The data shows that 20.6% of tax filers in Karnataka earn at least ₹1 lakh per month, making it the state with the largest proportion of individuals in this bracket. Officials said Bengaluru’s expanding IT, startups, services, and financial sectors play a major role in driving this concentration of high earners.

Telangana followed with 19.8% of taxpayers in the same income range, while Jharkhand stood at 19.5%. Tamil Nadu (18.8%) and Delhi (17.6%) rounded out the top five. Puducherry (17.4%), Odisha (16.8%), Maharashtra (16.2%), Andhra Pradesh (15.9%) and Uttarakhand (14.2%) were also among the top 10.

On average, 14.1% of taxpayers across India report incomes between ₹12–50 lakh. Interestingly, Gujarat, despite its high level of economic activity, was at the bottom of the list, which officials said could be due to a broader and higher overall tax base in the state.