oppn parties Pseudo Agriculturists Must Be Exposed

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  • For the first time ever, Mukesh Ambani buys a 29% stake in Gautam Adani's Mahan Energen, a subsidiary of Adani Power to source 500MW of electricity from the company's power plant in MP
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  • In Assam, a controversy erupted after a picture of UPPL leader Benjamin Basumatary, lying on a stack of Rs 500 notes circulated on social media. UPPL is an ally of the BJP
  • AAP's Jalandhar-West MP Sushil Kumar Rinku joins the BJP. He was the only AAP Lok Sabha MP
  • Supreme Court dismisses Centre's plea to review its 2023 verdict in the PMLA case
  • Close save for passengers as they remain unhurt after the wings of two planes graze at Kolkata airport. Pilots derostered and inquiry ordered by DGCA
  • Bengal BJP leader Dilip Ghosh gets notice from the EC as well as the BJP for making ugly remarks about Mamata Banerjee's parentage
  • Sadanand Vasanth Date, who faught terrorists in the 26/11 attack and was awarded the Preisent's Police medal, has been appointed the head of the NIA
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Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena says government cannot be run from jail, hints at President's Rule in the capital ////// In a dangerous incident, the wings of two planes grazed while taxiing on the runway at Kolkata airport, all passengers were safe but DGCA ordered an inquiry and the pilots were derostered
oppn parties
Pseudo Agriculturists Must Be Exposed

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2017-04-28 12:31:54

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley has said that the government has no plans to tax agricultural income as suggested by Niti Aayog member Bibek Debroy. He did not point out that as the law stands today, the Centre is not empowered by the Constitution to tax agricultural income. This power vests solely with the states. In fact, some states tax income from agriculture heavily, especially for cash crops like tea in Assam. If the Centre is to tax agricultural income, it will have to amend the constitution. But if it taxes agricultural income, then it will lead to double taxation, once by the state and then by the Centre.

One believes that it is not as much a question of taxing agricultural income as it is to plug the loophole being exploited by unscrupulous taxpayers to avoid paying taxes on dubious income being passed off as such. Since agricultural income is at present not taxed in income tax but just clubbed with other income for rate purpose, one can inflate one’s income to any extent and yet pay a small amount of tax. This is resulting in a loss of huge revenue for the department.

The basic problem is that people who are declaring agricultural income are doing so with complete disregard to their land holding. If one were to collate their land holding with the income they show from harvesting crops, one would find that the yield per acre would set world records by huge margins. It is this misuse that has to be first stopped. Taxpayers who declare agricultural income for clubbing purpose must be made to give details of their land holding (both leased and owned), the crop sowed, the yield per acre and the proceeds from sale of such yield. There must be a standard yield per acre and crop price location-wise that must be followed by the income tax department to determine and fix such income (much like the circle rate for property tax). If this procedure is followed, much of the grey areas will vanish and the incentive to fudge income will fall in the face of details to be provided. Pseudo agriculturists need to be exposed.