What is new
Will India let digital tax swindlers have a free run under Digi-dhan?
- Published on 14 April 2017
(Image Courtesy: taxindiaonline.com)
Is a tax evasion scam building under the benign canopy of Digi-dhan/cashless economy? Is the Government legally and technically equipped to prevent growth of digital black money?
With due apologies to experts who have pitched digital payments as means to reducing tax evasion, we have to address such emerging issues for two reasons. First, India can’t shut its ears to alarm bells ringing abroad over digital tax frauds.
Authoritative studies show that several developed and emerging economies are losing billions of dollars of revenue every year due to digital tax evasion. This is notwithstanding tightening of regulatory framework for usage of point of sale (POS) terminals, a major driver of both digital economy and black money.
As put by Capgemini Consulting , “digital technologies are a double-edged sword. These smart technologies are also giving rise to new types of digital tax fraud”.
In a recent paper captioned ‘Taming Tax Fraud’s New Digital Frontier: What Can Tax Authorities Do to Take on Fraudsters and Win’, Capgemini says it has modeled the evolution of tax fraud, taking into account new incidences of fraud enabled by digital technologies.
Debate Impact of Fiscal Responsibility with Opacity & Zero Accountability
- Published on 31 March 2017
(Fiscal Councils Map. Image Courtesy: IMF)
International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) two recent country reports on India have made certain crucial observations on fiscal discipline and debt sustainability. These should lead to a serious Parliamentary debate.
Members of Parliament (MPs) ought to pitch for fiscal transparency, which successive regimes have resisted, spurning well-meaning advice from different quarters. Fiscal transparency has now touched a new low under NDA Government. This charge would get amply substantiated by facts later in this column.
Fiscal opacity, which minimizes accountability, can leave future generated indebted for cash splurged by populism and opportunism-driven politics.
A clear-cut inference from IMF’s Staff Report (SR) is that it does not accept Government’s computation of fiscal deficit. Says SR: “The FY2016/17 Budget targets a fiscal deficit of 3.5 percent of GDP (equivalent to about 3.8 percent of GDP in IMF terms)”.
It has reiterated this observation elsewhere in the report. Neither Government nor IMF has explained to the public why & how this 0.3% difference is GDP has arisen.
Have they factored in all off-budget transactions in fiscal deficit? Have they given consideration to Government’s normal practice of rolling over certain due payments such as subsidies to the next budget? Why should total accumulated deficit of Rs 90,707.56 crore as on 31st March 2015 under National Small Savings Fund (NSSF) not be reflected in fiscal deficit?
Dreams Unlimited from Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ to Modi’s ‘New India’
- Published on 19 March 2017
(Image Courtesy: PIB)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to citizens to take a pledge for a New India has overwhelmed as well as dazed me. Overwhelmed because it has kindled a new light at the end of dark tunnel. And dazed because I realize that virtually all ex-PMs foresaw ‘New India’ during their respective tenure.
With the promises and pledges for New India galore, I find myself in a whirlpool of dreams. I find they have not led the country near the promised Utopia.
The other day, I instantly became Bhavuk (overwhelmed) when PM saw a New India in the mandate that BJP got in recent State assembly elections.
PM ordained: “On the NM Mobile App http://nm4.in/dnldapp, take the pledge and express your commitment towards building a new India.”
He added: “A new India is emerging, which is being powered by the strength & skills of 125 crore Indians. This India stands for development. When we mark 75 years of freedom in 2022, we should have made an India that will make Gandhi Ji, Sardar Patel & Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar proud.”
I look at the heaven and ask did they not feel proud when Parliament unanimously passed ‘Agenda for India’ to mark 50 years of Independence?
Demonetization & GDP Politics Should lead to Statistical Reforms
- Published on 17 March 2017
(Edited Image Courtesy: data.gov.in)
“Is the primary aim of a statistical service to provide the data the Government (that is, the current political leadership) requires or is its mission broader? The question is a real one,” says a United Nations Working Paper (WP) released way back in 1994.
Significance of this seminal work titled ‘Politics and Statistics: Independence, Dependence or Interaction?’ to Demonetization-hit India would become real to anyone who reads it with an open mind.
WP contends: “a statistical service must find ways of being responsive to new or altered needs for data. At times such needs are explicitly articulated. At other times they must be inferred from current or anticipated political debates.”
This should ring in as wake-up call for Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) that blissfully shunned the word ‘demonetization’ in its 15-page Press Note dated 28th February 2017. The same call should have stirred conscience of Ministry of Labour & Employment’s Labour Bureau (LB) which has not assessed the impact of demonetization on labour market.
The failure of these two premier statistical organizations to collect data on demonetization’s impact is contrary to United Nations’ Fundamental Principles of Statistics that every NSO/statistical service is supposed to follow as its dharma. We discuss the significance of these principles in Indian situation later in this column.