Jaitley says he is against burdening salaried, middle class with more taxes

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said he does not favour burdening the salaried and middle class with more taxes but would go after the evaders in widening the net.

In fact, he would encourage more money being put in the pockets of tax payers that will lead to spending and collection of more indirect taxes.

“This widening of the tax base. What does it mean? ...I pay the same indirect tax as my attendant. Our volume of consumption may be different. So everybody is paying indirect taxes.

“And literally almost half your taxes are indirect taxes today. He pays excise, he pays customs duty, he pays service tax. Now as far as income-tax is concerned, to bring those who evade tax is widening the tax net, I am all for it,” the Minister said in an interaction with PTI journalists.

He was replying to a question on whether his budget would look at widening the tax base to maximise revenue.

Jaitley, who will be presenting his first full-fledged Budget in February, said in his last Budget he had increased the tax exemption limit from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh and would even raise it further if he had more money.

Govt to go ahead with reform measures

Unfazed by the Opposition’s hard positions on passage of reform legislations such as the Insurance Bill, he said the Government was determined to go ahead with the measures in the winter session of Parliament beginning Monday.

However, he parried questions on whether the Government plans to convene a joint session for passage of some of these legislations if consensus with the Congress and other Opposition parties was not possible.

“We are determined to go ahead. Merely because someone has an agenda only to obstruct is not going to deter us,” Jaitley said.

He was asked as to what the Government’s stand would be in regard to pushing bills like the one to further open up the insurance sector when Congress leaders such as Anand Sharma say that they have reservations over it and that they are non-committal on changes to the Land Act and the Coal Regulatory Authority Bill.

“I am not saying it is a possibility. Maybe we have it cleared in the House itself. The more the State elections, the more the obstructionists will lose,” he said when asked about the possibility of holding a joint session.

Jaitley’s remarks were a veiled dig at Congress which has lost power in Maharashtra and Haryana and faces a tough electoral battle in Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand.

Replying to another question as to why the Government has problems with the land acquisition law when the BJP did not seek these changes when it was being passed during the UPA regime, the Finance Minister said it is the principal job of the Government to lay down the agenda.

“When the Government comes out with a highly-populist agenda, however misconceived it is, you don’t expect the Opposition to say don’t do it. So when the Rajasthan Government (of the Congress) said I will distribute medicines free, why will the Opposition oppose it and spoil chances for itself.”

He also claimed that even within UPA, barring a small section, most others who dealt with the subject were conscious that “what they have done has adverse consequences”.

Govt to relook tax treaties to unearth black money

On the task of getting back black money stashed abroad, he said the Government was having a relook at some of the bilateral tax treaties signed with foreign countries that may be hindering the repatriation of the money.

“Of course, we are,” he said when asked whether the Government would have a relook at the bilateral treaties through which the Government was not easily getting information about black money hoarders abroad.

Jaitley said he had sent a delegation recently to Switzerland and they have come back with some positive movement.

“We have to furnish evidence independent of the HSBC list. I can’t go to them (foreign countries) and they say the HSBC list is stolen, I won’t cooperate. So I won’t go to you on the basis of a stolen list. But if I present to you some independent evidence about names which happen to come on the stolen list, then will you provide me the evidence?” he said referring to the discussions with Swiss government.

Asked if this was not provided in the current bilateral treaties, the Minister said: “This is what we have discussed. Increasingly the cooperation is increasing. Now if you see the US laws, they want more and more countries to accept that law which provides for automatic exchange of information.”

To a question whether India would be signing such a treaty, the Minister said, “our application is precisely that. The Supreme Court, the earlier judgement, needs a clarification. So the Special Investigation Team (SIT) is looking into it.”

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