Premji wants lower tax rate for better compliance
Bengaluru, July 24: Global software major Wipro's chief Azim Premji on Tuesday said India needs lower income tax rate for better compliance.
"One of the drivers for voluntary compliance is lower tax rates. Lower the tax rate, lower is the incentive toAevade taxes," Premji said at an event by the Income Tax Department of Karnataka-Goa region here to mark 158th Income Tax (IT) Day.
The tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio in India is about 16 per cent, including the taxes levied by the state, while in many developed countries, the ratio stands at about 35-40 per cent, Premji said.
"It is important that India's tax to GDP ratio climbs up substantially so that our public, social investments can rise to the level that are required," he added.
Expansion of tax base would help improve the tax to GDP ratio, rather than higher rates of taxes, he asserted, adding that compliance through investigation and vigilance only yield moderate results.
Initiatives like reducing corporate tax rates for small and medium enterprises, rationalisation of the slab rates for individuals help in ensuring compliance among tax payers, he told a gathering of IT Department officials, tax payers and students at the Town Hall in the city centre.
Noting that tax revenue constitutes a huge part of the Union government's budget, Premji said th Acountry's expenditure on social sector, infrastructure and defence are met almost entirely from tax collections.
"Given such high reliance on tax, tax payers play an important role in nation building. Taxes we pay also contribute to the country's moon mission and other programmes," he said.
Technology can also help in increasing the ease of filing taxes and thereby compliance, he said.
"Leveraging on technology, there is a prospect of using Goods and Services Tax (GST) data to validate the IT returns."
With countries like the US taking tax measures like tariffs, outsourcing tax etc., it could trigger trade wars which are detrimental to the growth of developing countries like India, Premji stressed.
"Tax administrations of various countries must collaborate better to prevent shrinking of global trade," he said.
Quoting renowned American politician Benjamin Franklin, Premji said in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
"Just as we all aspire to a death that is not painful, tax should be at least made less painful," he said, calling on students and youth to devise taxation systems that are inexpensive, easy to calculate and convenient to pay.
Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax for Karnataka-Goa region B.R. Balakrishnan on the occasion recalled that the India first introduced tax on income in 1860 under British rule.
The tax collected in 1860 was Rs 11 lakh, while in the 2017-18 fiscal, the total tax revenues amounted to Rs 10 lakh crore, he said.
Karnataka and Goa region is the third largest tax contributor in the country, after Mumbai and Delhi.
"Over one lakh crore rupees were collected in the region through taxes for 2017-18, with more than 24 lakh people filing their IT returns," he said.
The IT Department aims to collect over Rs 1.23 lakh crore through tax from across the country for 2018-19 financial year, by adding new return filers, Balakrishnan added.
Through investigations and searches, the Department has been able to detect undisclosed income of over Rs 12,000 crore in the Karnataka-Goa region last year, he added
This financial year, nearly 170 raids have been conducted on various individuals in the region, resulting in detection of undisclosed income of Rs 236 crore, he added.
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Not surprised EC gave itself clean chit: Cong slams poll panel on Haryana complaints
Warns ECI of legal action over 'condescending' tone
New Delhi, Nov 1: The Congress on Friday hit out at the Election Commission after it rejected allegations of "irregularities" in Haryana assembly polls, saying if the poll panel's goal is to "strip itself of the last vestiges of neutrality", then it is doing a "remarkable job" at creating that impression.
The opposition party claimed that the EC's reply was written in a tone that is condescending and warned that if the poll panel persists with such language then it would have no choice but to seek legal recourse for getting such remarks expunged.
The Congress's response came days after the EC rejected allegations levelled by it over "irregularities" in assembly polls, saying the party was raising "the smoke of a generic doubt" about the credibility of an entire electoral outcome as done in the past.
The Congress said it is not surprised that the ECI has examined its complaints and "given itself a clean chit". The answer given to the question of the machines' fluctuating batteries seeks to confuse rather than clarify, it said.
"At any rate, the ECI reply is nothing more than a standard and generic set of bullets on how the machines function rather than a specific clarification on specific complaints. In short, while our complaints were specific the ECI response is generic and focused on diminishing the complaints and the petitioners," the Congress said.
In its letter to the EC signed by nine senior Congress leaders, including general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh, the party said, "We have carefully studied your response to our complaints. Not surprisingly, the ECI has given a clean chit to itself. We would normally have let it be at that. However, the tone and tenor of the ECI's response, the language used, and the allegations made against the INC compel us to submit the counter-response."
The Congress letter said that if the Commission grants a recognised national party a hearing or examines issues raised by them in good faith it is not an 'exception' or 'indulgence' but it is the performance of a duty required to be done.
"If the Commission is refusing to grant us a hearing or refusing to engage on certain complaints (which it has done in the past) then the law allows recourse to the higher courts' extraordinary jurisdiction to compel the ECI to discharge this function (as happened in 2019)," the letter said.
The Congress leaders, who had petitioned the EC alleging irregularities in the polls, said every reply from the EC now "seems to be laced with ad-hominem attacks" on either individual leaders or the party itself.
"The ECI's reply are written in a tone that is condescending. If the current ECI's goal is to strip itself of the last vestiges of neutrality, then it is doing a remarkable job at creating that impression," the party said in its letter to the EC.
"Judges who write decisions do not attack or demonise the party raising the issues. However, if the ECI persists then we shall have no choice but to seek legal recourse to expunge such remarks," said the letter signed by Ramesh, K C Venugopal, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupinder Hooda, Ajay Maken, Abhishek Singhvi, Uday Bhan, Partap Bajwa and Pawan Khera.
They also said that the "pattern" sought to be identified by the ECI in its reply is "disingenuous" as sometimes acting on complaints immediately is the key.
"If they are not redressed on the ground then they become redundant. And then the only remedy available is an Election Petition which is a lengthy process taking years to resolve. Thus, we approach the ECI with whatever information we have, and the ECI with the vast resources at its command, examines and reviews this information to see if the same is correct. Many times, the ECI has found our information to be correct. Other times, not so. But we do not name and shame the ECI for those moments after the Election is over," they said.
The Congress said if they were "bad faith actors", then they would never engage with the ECI to begin with. "We would focus on naming and shaming the Commission with examples from the ECI's own recent history which do not shroud it with glory," it said, adding that they would have never engaged in that case.
The Congress said it has sent over a hundred complaints against the prime minister and home minister, but "the ECI has taken action in precisely zero complaints, while calling our party president and former party president to account for their actions/speeches".
"We would point out how the ECI never published a dissent note, actively suppressing it instead, by a former Commissioner in this regard. We would point out that the ECI has almost always fought any move for transparency and increase in VVPAT verification numbers, with the same having to be ordered by the Supreme Court. We challenge the ECI to fact check the above since it finds the INC's misgivings to be based on phantoms," the Congress said.
In a strongly-worded letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the poll panel had said such "frivolous and unfounded" doubts have the potential of creating "turbulence" when crucial steps like polling and counting are in live play, a time when both public and political parties' anxiousness is peaking.
The BJP retained power in Haryana winning 48 of the 90 seats in the October 5 assembly polls.
