Nullifying non-deposited currency was not the only aim: Jaitley on demonetisation
New Delhi, Aug 30 : A day after the RBI revealed that 99.3 per cent of the demonetised currency was returned to the banks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said the invalidation of the non-deposited currency was not the only objective of the noteban.
Jaitley said the larger purpose of the demonetisation was to remove the anonymity of the owner of cash and to move India from a tax non-compliant society to a compliant society.
"Was the invalidation of the non-deposited currency the only object of demonetisation? Certainly not. The larger purpose of demonetisation was to move India from a tax non-compliant society to a compliant society. This necessarily involved the formalisation of the economy and a blow to the black money," he said in a Facebook post.
The Minister said the objectives of demonetisation have been achieved and explained when cash is deposited in the banks, the anonymity about the owner of the cash disappears.
"The deposited cash is now identified with its owner giving rise to an inquiry, whether the amount deposited is in consonance with the depositor's income. Accordingly, post demonetisation about 1.8 million depositors have been identified for this enquiry.
Many of them are being fastened with tax and penalties. Mere deposit of cash in a bank does not lead to a presumption that it is tax paid money," he said.
In March 2014, the number of income tax returns filed was 3.8 crore. In 2017-18, this figure grew to 6.86 crore. In the last two years, when the impact of demonetisation and other steps is analysed, the income tax returns have increased by 19 per cent and 25 per cent.
"This is a phenomenal increase," he said, adding the number of new returns filed post demonetisation increased in the past two years by 85.51 lakhs and 1.07 crore, respectively.
Jaitley also shared data related to jump in advance tax. For 2018-19, advance tax in the first quarter increased for personal income tax assesses by 44.1 per cent and in the corporate tax category by 17.4 per cent, he said.
Further, he said the income tax collections increased from Rs 6.38 lakh crore in 2013-14 to Rs 10.02 lakh crore in 2017-18.
"The growth of income tax collections in the pre-demonetisation two years was 6.6 per cent and 9 per cent. Post-demonetisation, the collections increased by 15 per cent and 18 per cent in the next two years. The same trend is visible in the third year," he said.
On Goods and Services Tax (GST), which was implemented post demonetisation on July 1, 2017, the Minister said there has been a rise of 72.5 per cent in the number of registered assesses from 66.17 lakh originally to 114.17 lakh today.
"This is the positive impact of the demonetisation. More formalisation of the economy, More money in the system, higher tax revenue, higher expenditure, higher growth after the first two quarters," he said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
