Shortcomings of reconsidered bills in this session of Parliament

Shortcomings of reconsidered bills in this session of Parliament

Question : In the concluded Parliamentary session, certain Bills had to be sent to parliamentary committees for scrutiny. Examine the shortcomings of these Bills.

In the just concluded session, certain important Bills were passed while others had to be sent for further reconsideration. These delayed Bills suffer from the following shortcomings:

Black Money Bill

• This is a paper tiger. It holds for stringent punishment of those who hold undisclosed wealth or earn such incomes abroad
•
• NRIs are not obliged to declare assets or income to authorities as per the Bill; Black money hoarders will show their income in legal arrangements with NRIs

• The Bill is applicable if the government can detect black money stashed abroad; however the Bill has no mechanism for doing so; The punishment it implements can hardly be leveraged as an amnesty scheme is being offered to people who have black money abroad

• Bill also does not address the issue of layering wherein person’s identity is hidden through use of shell companies in tax havens for fund transfer

• Bill has no mechanism for identification of funds going out or being held in foreign shores

• Information will be attained via DTAA or TIE with governments; under them, no data is forthcoming on black money holders

• Agreements concern declared income and not undisclosed wealth or incomes

Whistleblower’s Bill

• Amendments proposed will make actions on complaints by whistleblowers difficult and they also face the risk of prosecution

• This will dissuade people from being whistleblowers

GST

• Manufacturing states will face massive loss of revenue if this Bill is passed
• Small and tiny units in India’s unorganised sector produce and sell locally and employ around 93% of the workforce and they will lose on large scale production gains as a result of this bill

• This will cut job creation and cause distress to the farm sector because excess labour from the farm sector works in unorganised sector

• Small scale sector outside GST will not be able to sell to large scale sector as it will not have recipients for payment of VAT

• Unorganised sector cannot afford computerisation of accounts for calculating value addition and pay tax on this

• There are also conflicting points in the argument made for GST. Tax GDP ratio can only increase if more tax is collected and prices will rise causing slowdown in demand so GDP growth rate will not increase as claimed

• If GST is not raised to RNR, tax collection and tax GDP ratio will not rise, showing a contradiction in the government’s argument

Land Acquisition Bill

• This will only further the interests of big businesses and it is part of the ease of doing business

• Land owners and farming community is being marginalised as they will not be consulted for land acquisition in many cases