The government's efforts to widen the tax base are not paying off. New tax payers added over the past three years show a decline, while a staggering 89% of existing assessees are bunched in the lowest income bracket of Rs 5 lakh or less a year. Numbers point to a worrying trend the government would want to reverse as while 17,84,709 assessees were added in 2008-09, the figure slid to 16,75,069...
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Budget 2012: Shock therapy advised for tax evaders by Deepshikha Sikarwar
Indians with undisclosed foreign assets and offshore bank accounts will be in for a shock this Budget if the finance ministry clears a proposal empowering income tax authorities to reopen assessments up to 16 years as against 6 years now. The proposed amendment, the ministry feels, may not only act as a deterrent, but also put pressure on people to declare their wealth stashed away in Swiss banks and tax havens. In...
More »Muslim board intensifies campaign for demands by Khalid Akhter
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the apex body of Indian Muslims, is venting its ire against the Congress-led UPA government after it got no response to its demands for amendments in Right to Education (RTE) Act, Waqf Property and Direct Taxes Code Bills. Though the board has been holding meetings across the country to mobilise public opinion since June 2011, the campaign has been intensified in the poll-bound...
More »Now, a green cess on petrol, cars? by Mahendra Kumar Singh
Buying and running cars and two-wheelers could soon become a costly affair with a Planning Commission working group suggesting a green surcharge of Rs 2 on every litre of petrol, a green cess of 3% of the annual insured value of all private vehicles and a steep urban transport tax to be collected at the time of purchase of private vehicles. The panel, headed by Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan, has...
More »The Union Cabinet gets healthier by P Sainath
The worse off the poor become, the healthier our Ministers get. Air India might not be doing as well we'd like it to. But the braveheart who flew it fearlessly into dense clouds of debt is doing okay. Praful Patel (who no longer holds the aviation portfolio) added, on average, over half a million rupees every day to his assets in 28 months between May 2009 and August 2011. This might...
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