India, July 29 -- If you felt that your salary has been stagnating over the past few years, there is now data from the income tax filings that turns the feeling into a fact. Middle India in the tax-included formal sector has expanded, but the average person within this band has barely seen salaries rise for the decade ending 2022-23.

Of course, those moving up the income bands have done better, but the average person in this band has not gained much. Also upending the inequality narratives, the rich, on an average, have not got richer in terms of salary incomes. But the lower income cohort has been the biggest average salary-gainer over the decade.

The most striking story evident from the Income Tax Return Statistics for FY13 and FY23 r...