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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Rahul's minimum income plan is fatally flawed -SA Aiyar

Rahul's minimum income plan is fatally flawed -SA Aiyar

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published Published on Mar 31, 2019   modified Modified on Mar 31, 2019
-The Times of India blog

Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ swept the polls in 1971. Rahul Gandhi hopes to follow suit with NYAY (Nyuntam Aay Yojana), promising a minimum income of Rs 72,000 per year to the 50 million poorest families. Garibi Hatao flopped badly. So will NYAY unless totally rethought.

Indian parties have a consensus on cash grants to the needy. Schemes in Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand have been followed by Modi’s PM-Kisan, costing Rs 75,000 crore per year. Achieving that without fiscal profligacy is difficult. Rahul’s NYAY will cost almost five times more, Rs 360,000 crore, or 1.8% of GDP.

Horrendous problems and leakages will arise in identifying the poorest 20%. India has no income surveys. People will hide their true income to qualify, so the biggest liars will be the biggest gainers. Income certificates from sarpanches or officials will breed huge corruption. Many poor people live in remote non-electric unbanked areas, almost unreachable by cash transfers. NYAY will make the bottom 20% richer than the lower middle 20-40%, who will, rightly, howl that this is arbitrary and unfair.

How will Rahul finance NYAY? Not by a big GST hike: that could be almost as inflationary as printing notes. Besides, he has long said indirect taxes (especially on auto fuels) are too high. He could raise corporate tax rates. But that will ruin the existing policy of lowering the tax rate plus cess/surcharge (34.5% for large companies today) to 25% to compete with other Asian nations. India must be tax competitive to take on China (15-25% corporate tax) in the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) free trade area.

Today’s entire income tax collection is barely 2% of GDP.  Doubling this is impossible quickly. History shows that, beyond a point, high tax rates produce a black economy, not revenue. Indira Gandhi raised income tax to 97.75% but got no tax bonanza. By contrast Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram slashed it in the 1990s from 50% to 30%, yet improved the income tax/GDP ratio, by inducing more tax honesty.

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The Times of India, 31 March, 2019, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/Swaminomics/rahuls-minimum-income-plan-is-fatally-flawed/


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