Budget approved; no amnesty scheme on black money

Jaitley rules out any scheme to provide incentives for people to declare black money

Parliament on Wednesday approved the Union Budget after the Rajya Sabha returned the Finance Bill following a discussion at the end of which Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ruled out any scheme to provide incentives for people to declare black money.

Replying to the debate, Mr. Jaitley said an amnesty scheme to unearth black money went against honest taxpayers.

Elaborating this point, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman said, “Experience shows when you bring in VDIS [Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme], it discriminates against genuine tax payers. Those of you who pay taxes are dis-incentivised... it goes against honest taxpayers... It may not be a conducive path for recovering more taxes.”

Mr. Jaitley reiterated that the government would review the controversial General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) aimed at companies routing money through tax havens abroad. Introduced in 2012, the GAAR was deferred after apprehensions among investors that the rules could be used by authorities to harass honest players.

Refuting the contention of several members that the budget has given very little relief to taxpayers, Ms. Sitharaman said within the available resources, the government had done its best to provide relief to small and medium taxpayers to encourage savings and promote growth.

Initiating the debate, T. Subbirami Reddy (Congress) said the impression that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) had left behind empty coffers was not correct. The record of the first eight years of the UPA government was spectacular, but the last two years were affected by global economic recession.

Dr. Reddy conceded that the Congress-led UPA had failed to communicate its achievements to the people, for which it had to pay the price. He dubbed the National Democratic Alliance budget a carbon copy of the policies of the UPA and wanted to know how the Modi government intended to fulfil all its promises.

D. Raja (CPI) said the government fell short of expectations in thrust areas such as resource mobilisation, revenue generation and equitable distribution of resources in its Budget.