Never talked about bringing black money in 100 days: Government
Even as Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said a heavy tax regime was responsible for black money, his ministerial colleague M Venkaiah Naidu told parliament amidst uproar that BJP had never promised to bring back black money stashed aboard in first 100 days of power. Reading BJP manifesto, Naidu, also parliamentary affairs minister said the document only speaks to set up a mechanism within 100 days to work for bringing back the black money. He also denied the party had ever given any figures for black money, saying he had only quoted Rs. 25,000 crore figures as put out by then CBI chief AP Singh.
“Where is the promise of 100 days in the manifesto as contended by Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge,” he mocked at the Congress, but only to get a strong repartee from Kharge that he was again trying to mislead since he (Kharge) had given a date-wise details that included then BJP president Rajnath Singh setting the deadline in January.
Later, while replying two-day debate in Lok Sabha, Jaitley advocated a tax structure which discourages evasion. He said there was a misconception that high tax rates lead to higher revenues.
“High tax rates do not necessarily mean more revenue collection… The direct and indirect tax rates have to be brought to reasonable level so that the basket increases and there is no incentive for evasion,” Jaitley said.
Jaitley also explained the problem of the “confidentiality clause” in treaties and agreements with many countries that prohibits disclosure of names except when the culprits are prosecuted. He said such a clause is prescribed even in Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATA) being proposed by the US and which may become the new international regime that prescribes the “withholding tax” of 30 per cent on the international remittances. He said India has to be part of this global arrangement, lest 30 per cent of all business transactions by the Indians as well as remittances by the NRIs are with held by the countries in the days to come
Even as the Opposition members kept intervening him to know why the government was protecting the black money hoarders by not revealing their names and what happened to bring back black money in 100 days, Jaitley said the government has already identified 427 account holders associated with HSBC list and set the deadline of March 31 to complete their tax assessment and take them to the court. As many as 250 of them have already admitted having the illegal foreign bank accounts, he said. The Lok Sabha witnessed similar drama as in the Rajya Sabha as the Congress took the lead to walk out even as Jaitley was replying to the debate and some of the other opposition parties followed suit.
Venkaiah Naidu earlier created flutter by saying that then finance minister (Pranab Mukherjee) actually gave the 100-day promise in the House in 2009. The Congress protests, however, made him state that the promise was that “action will be initiated in 100 days.”
