‘What does the middle class get?’: Shehzad Poonawalla seeks scrapping of income tax for salaried Indian

BJP leader Shehzad Poonawalla has questioned whether India’s middle class gets enough in return for the taxes and tolls it pays, arguing that families are increasingly forced to rely on private services for basic needs such as education and healthcare.

In a video posted on Instagram as part of his social media initiative, ‘The Manifesto’, Poonawalla described the middle class as an “ATM” for the government, saying it pays income tax, indirect taxes and tolls without receiving adequate public services in return.

His remarks came a day before he publicly announced his resignation as a BJP spokesperson. Poonawalla said he had submitted his resignation on July 30 and cited his financial circumstances as one of the reasons for the decision.

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Poonawalla questioned whether Indians paying taxes at levels comparable to those in Europe receive a similar standard of living in return. He pointed to poor roads, inadequate schools, crumbling infrastructure, paper leaks, corruption, lack of accountability, toxic air and toxic water as some of the problems faced by taxpayers.

“Middle class earns. Middle class pays. But what does the middle class get back?” he wrote in a post on X, listing bad roads, air pollution, toxic water and corruption before calling for the personal income tax to be scrapped.

He also highlighted the additional financial pressure created by the reliance on private services.

Families, he noted, often turn to private schools for their children’s education and private hospitals for their parents’ healthcare. “When you need to send your child to a school, it is invariably a private school. When you need to send your parents to a hospital, invariably, it is a private hospital,” Poonawalla said.

According to Poonawalla, the issue is not specific to any one government or political party, but has affected India’s middle class since Independence.

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Poonawalla's proposals for the middle class

Poonawalla called for lower taxes on the middle class, particularly salaried taxpayers, and argued that income-tax slabs should be increased.

“Cut taxes for the middle class. The salaried class should not be paying such high taxes. They need to be given a break,” he said, while also calling for greater accountability in how taxpayers’ money is spent.

He stressed that every rupee collected through personal income tax should be used efficiently, saying the government must ensure that “every rupee of personal income tax that the taxpayer pays is efficiently used.”

Poonawalla’s comments come as he begins using his social media initiative, ‘The Manifesto’, to raise issues concerning middle-class households and their financial burden.