Mr.

Speaker, Sir, while

opposing the Budget, we have described it as
pro-rich and anti-poor. It has a20 lot of deficiencies. The country in its present
position will never be benefited from the Budget proposals made by Shrio
Yashwant Sinha onthe 1st June, 1998. I am not going to
repeat the points I had
alreadyso made on that day. I shall only confine myself to some of the important
provisions in the Finance Bill asto some of my colleagues will further add to the
points made by me.
Firstly, there has been national consensus that100 we need a radical
restructuring in the tax structure both Direct tax and Indirect tax in our country.
Restructuring does120 not only mean simplifying the tax structure; bringing down
the number of concessions and rates and all these
fresh look at the tax structure
things but40 also having a
prevailing in our country for the last several
years. Sir, it60 is very unfortunate that hardly one per cent of the Indian population
does pay income tax, may be currently it80 is a little more
than one per cent.
So many foreigners are coming to India. Because of
constraint of time,20o
I would not illustrate many
examples. When famous Noam Chomsky had come
to Delhi, he had made a
very remarkable220 comment that 'the Indian rich, Indian
elite are fabulously rich in their spending capacity far more than I have seen240
it in the United States'. It is a telling commentary. Noam Chomsky said thie
am not going to quantify20 the neo-rich because there is a dispute about it
the earlier days of reforms, the MNCS had quantified them to the extent of 20
crores or something like that.
Ultimately they burnt their fingers following overestimation of thesm
consumers market and they are relearning. Whatever it may be, whether it is 15
crore or 20 crore or 25320 crore, a large chunk, about one-fifth of the Indian
population is rich enough to pay income tax. I congratulateso the Minister because
this present criterion of 'One-in-Six' will help to some extent to widen tax net.
But360 there are many more areas, many more parameters and many more
yardsticks that could be used to widen the net.380
I was reading one book where the Indian econonmic situation has been
analysed. It says that the rural rich, the0 rural kulaks, have accumulated more
money, the mercantile capital, in some areas is surpassing the industrial capital,
though not in*20 all parts of the country. This rural wealth does not come within
the tax net. Some measures should be taken4o to see that at least those rich
people who have cellphone, maruti gypsies, tractors and a very wide influence
on the rural economy are brought into the income tax net. So, restructuring
does not mean just simplification of a form0 and giving it a new name called
Saralor for that matter bringing down the number of concessions and reductions.5o0
There must be some sincere attempt to widen the tax net also.
In our country black-money generation, in spite$20 of so many amnesty
schemes, has never stopped operating and growing. It has been growing and
growing in spite ofs40 several concessions given and several amnesty schemes
offered. We have the experience of the latest VDIS where the honest
tax-payers0
were made to suffer for
rewarding the dishonest people. What happened
ultimately? The honest tax-payers had also to resortseo to a particular path to
have greater concessions. This is reflected in the
compliance.
Earlier it was said that the500 lower the rate the better is the
But compliance.
you take into account the psyche of the lIndian rich,620 it is never true.It
is because wherever there is a loophole, the
psyche of the Indian rich is to
avail of that loophole and they are doing it. I am
saying this because another
amnesty shceme with a differentse0 name has been proposed. The name is
called Kar Vivad Samadhan. Now Rs. 40,000 crore has
been locked insao litigation
in respect of direct tax and perhaps another Rs.
indirect tax. There'00 is a proposal for one-time
12,000 crore pertaining to
settlement. I would like to know
from the Hon'ble Finance Minister as to how'/20
much does this Government
expect to get after this settlement. It is more of a settlement
or740 an instrument to mobilise the resources clearing the slate
that these dishonest
evaded and to get back what was due to'o the people had
the disputed income will be described or defined Government? I do not know how
under the Kar Vivad
scheme. Will a person who is involved in a
litigation
Samadhan
but has paid the full amount
get any concession?b00 Or, will a person who has not
at all paid anything but is
involved in a litigation be rewarded? The"
he replies. Minister, I hope, will explain this when