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Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the most crooked of all?
- Published on 15 April 2014
Crooked trunk Image courtesy: commons.wikimedia.org
It is a classical case of the pot calling the kettle black. The Congress has accused BJP of copying ideas from its manifesto and other documents. The former has also charged the latter with selective amnesia by stating that BJP has promised certain initiatives in its manifesto that are already under implementation.
The Congress Party has reportedly trashed the BJP manifesto as “laundry list of disconnected ideas.” Congress Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi accused BJP of being a “copycat”. Mr. Singhvi said the manifesto was “not even a cut-and-paste job”. He even went to the extent of claiming that BJP can be sued for copyright violation. Mr. Singhvi does not perhaps realize that his legal acumen might backfire on this issue.
If one puts laundry list and copy cat allegations together, the inference one gets is that laundry list of ideas has originated from the Congress documents or rather from its dirty linen!
Take another case of double-edged nature of Congress Party’s dig at BJP Manifesto.
Union Minister Jairam Ramesh said that BJP's manifesto is a hastily prepared “high school essay” prepared by “lifting” some of the portions from his own speeches and writings. Citing mention about Rurban India in BJP manifesto, he said this is subject on which he wrote 10 years ago.
What Mr. Ramesh forgot to tell the reporters or perhaps does not know that the word and concept Rurban has been in the existence much before he was born! The term was first used in 1918! Any Congress whiz kid can check this fact and also download voluminous literature on Rurban from the cyberspace.
Mr. Ramesh also labeled BJP as a “party of Kumbhkarnas” and said it promises programmes that are already underway over the past 10 years.
Any knowledgeable analyst would agree with Mr. Ramesh that some promises listed in the BJP manifesto are already under implementation. The promises should have been properly paraphrased to avoid the risk of sounding ignorant.
Notwithstanding this, the appellation of Kumbhkarans applies more to the Congress whose manifesto also reeks with ignorance and oversight. A case in point is the party’s promises about administrative reforms.
Aadhar’s pure magic gone; Congress banks on rights & commissions gimmickry
- Published on 01 April 2014
Manifesto image: courtesy Congress
A Right for Everybody; A Commission for every issue. This is the key message of the Congress Party’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls.
The implied message is indeed a survival kit for the Congress that once dreamt of big-leap victory in the 2014 and 2019 elections on the strength of aadhar card-enabled delivery of services.
The nursery rhyme ‘Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…’ appears to be now reverberating at Congress offices across the Nation. The Congress, the country’s most Machiavellian Party, is now realizing that an average Indian cherishes dignified work.
The electorate cannot be won (or rather bought) with freebies, notwithstanding rationalization of this practice by the Supreme Court. The apex court last year observed that electoral promises fall under the domain of Directive Principles of the Constitution and do not constitute corrupt practices. It, however, directed the Election Commission (EC) to frame guidelines on drafting of manifestos and EC recently acted accordingly.
EC should give verdict promptly on manifesto of each major party to show the extent of non-compliance with SC-mandated guidelines.
Except for the realization that dole-outs have lost the sheen, there is no other plausible explanation for the Congress bigwigs’ failure to orchestrate their claims on Aadhar.
Unravel JP Morgan affiliate-aided FDI from secret Swiss accounts in STPL
- Published on 31 March 2014
Road Tunnel image: courtesy Soma
The public suspicion that a part of foreign direct investment (FDI) in India comes from secret Swiss numbered accounts through circuitous route has turned out to be true.
In a case perhaps first of its kind, Soma Tollways Private Limited (STPL) has reluctantly admitted to the Government that a chunk of the unapproved FDI in its share capital has flowed in from two Swiss numbered accounts. The curtain over this unapproved FDI aggregating to Rs. 350 crore is, however yet to be lifted fully.
This money has been pumped in by certain Mauritius-registered foreign institutional investors (FIIs) whose ultimate control lies in the hands of high profile American Investment Bank, J.P. Morgan.
STPL has not disclosed the names of persons holding the two mysterious accounts, Geneva 4813 and Geneva 7631 accounts. It has justified non-disclosure by citing Swiss secrecy laws. That is where the case stands at present.
If STPL does not disclose the ownership of these accounts, then the Indian Government should seek requisite information under the Indo-Swiss Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC). When and whether this initiative would be taken is unclear at present.
It also remains to be seen whether the Government would take STPL’s case as a tip of the dubious FDI running into thousands of crore of Rupees which has flowed through Mauritius-registered FIIs.
IMF standardizes benchmarking norms for Tax administrations
- Published on 31 March 2014
Image courtesy: IMF
Tax administrations (TAs) in all the countries especially in the developing ones are under eternal pressure to generate more revenue without hampering investment and growth. Their performance is also subject to periodic criticism, some justified and some reflecting lack of understanding of the nature of operations of TAs.
The enormity of criticism depends on the yardsticks, parameters and targets against which the performance is measured. If the performance evaluation is deficient, the ensuing tax reforms might also turn out to be sub-optimal. Hence the need for a multi-facet benchmarking of TA’s operations.
TAs’ performance comes under regular scrutiny of the country’s supreme auditor. Such audits are policy/target/issue specific.
They are certainly not holistic. Country-centric and subject-specific audits by respective supreme auditors thus make it difficult for analysts to compare TAs performance to identify factors that either drive or constrain the working of TAs.
Objective comparison of performance is also impeded by divergence of organizational structure and functional autonomy given to TAs across the globe. In certain countries, the revenue governance is looked after by a single entity. In others, this job is assigned to two or more entities. The autonomy given to TAs by political executive also varies from country to country.
Notwithstanding such limitations that make comparisons challenging, different entities have tried to benchmark TAs performance on the basis of specific parameters to underscore factors that help certain TAs to excel. Those factors can thus serve as package for tax reforms by other entities that score modest or low rankings.
As put by Benchmarking of Tax Administrations Report of the EUROSAI Study Group in March 2008, "Although it may be difficult to compare all aspects of a tax administration’s performance, benchmarking provides SAIs with an opportunity to highlight performance measurement good practice. Measuring performance should be based on systematic collecting of information."
McKinsey & Company thus found that TAs in 13 countries can collect an additional $ 86 billion by improving their efficiency across all the four functions that it focused on in its benchmarking study of tax administrations conducted in 2008-2009.