08 May, 2017
"There is nothing of taxing agriculture income.in the document", Panagariya said, adding that the nearest thing that was mentioned in the 3-year action agenda was loopholes should be plugged to prevent non-agriculturists from converting their black money into white by showing it as agriculture income.
Though the Aayog had immediately termed Debroy's remark as his "personal" views and even government clarified that it has "no plan to impose any tax on agriculture income", the comment elicited a string of reactions from experts, in support and against, on the politically sensitive issue.
With regard to taxation reforms, the Aayog has proposed the government should do away with the corporate tax exemptions and bring down the tax rate from 34 per cent to 25 per cent (including surcharges and cesses) for all companies.
It also stressed on the need for using technology for various government activities.
Two days after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley clarified that the Centre has no plans to tax farmers, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian observed that while he wondered why rich farmers shouldn't be taxed, a decision on taxing farm income was clearly in the domain of the State governments, and not with the Centre. We have not proposed any tax on them.
"Cases of corruption among tax officials must be prosecuted and disposed of swiftly since without instilling honesty in officials in this area, we can not curb the generation of black money", the draft action agenda said.
Following his statement, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley categorically denied the same, adding the Centre has no power to impose tax on agricultural income.
On farm loan waiver, the NITI Aayog vice-chairman said, "States are empowered to waive farm loan".
The three-year draft action agenda, released by the Aayog on Thursday, stressed on minimising discretionary powers of government officials.
