What they said on the Budget
THESE are the comments of some Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha while debating the Finance Bill 2014.
Veerappa Moily: When the present Finance Minister was sitting on the opposition side, he termed taxation as terrorism. Have you made any attempt to ensure that that kind of a tension in the economy is removed? Rather, you want to pursue it more vigorously.
One example is the GST. How many years have passed with the Finance Ministers of the States constituting a Committee which was headed by the former Finance Minister of Bihar from your own party? Earlier, it was the Finance Minister of Bihar, Shri Sushil Kumar Modi, who was heading it. Of course, there were voices that opposed it from your own party, particularly when the quantum of jump the GDP can have is by mere introduction of GST, it can add up two per cent. At least, you mentioned about GST in your Budget. But again yesterday or the day before, we read in the newspapers that a seventh trip has been planned by the Empowered Committee to go around the world to make a study.
What kind of an approach is this? That means, you are not serious about it. What is the impression you would be carrying to the investment community, both domestic and foreign? This means, you would like to avoid it, you are not serious about it.
A clarification on the GST is necessary and I hope that in his reply the hon'ble Finance Minister will come out with a roadmap for implementation of GST and DTC. This needs to be addressed immediately. I thought with the fresh mandate that you have, you will be able to do it.
Thambidurai: Many Members raised the issue of GST. Actually, when you are implementing GST, you see what the share of our State is. A number of concerns have already been raised by the Tamil Nadu Government in this regard. The extent of revenue loss under GST, estimated to be around Rs.9,270 crore, due to the lower than revenue neutral rates proposed. We are losing nearly Rs.10,000 crore. That is why, we are raising this issue. The Union Government is bringing GST. Sir, in the Finance Minister's Budget speech, he has assured that he would take the concerns of the State Governments into account. Not only Tamil Nadu, but also other State Governments are also facing the same problem.
Therefore, when you are implementing GST, please take care of the revenue loss of the State government. Some Members from the Opposition side said that it has to be implemented immediately. At the same time, you have to look into the problems faced by the State Governments.
Jayadev Galla: We have been waiting for the GST for the last 15 years. But it is yet to see the light of the day. Unless GST is implemented, the tax base will not go up; unless the tax base is improved, we cannot have more collections; unless we have more tax collections, we cannot have buoyancy in the system; and without buoyancy, there cannot be welfare measures. So, GST is the tharaka mantra for social welfare and for high growth.
Y V Subba Reddy: I urge upon the Government to declare a tax holiday at least for 10 years to the industries established in the State of Andhra Pradesh which will be helpful to the financially weakened State.
E T Mohammed Basheer: About black money, we have all been discussing about it. During a discussion, almost all the Members were emphasizing on this black money issue.
But it is a fact and even according to the Budget documents, there is acute shortage of staff in the CBDT, CBEC, ED and FIU. More than 30,000 vacancies are remaining to be filled. I would suggest that we must take war-footing level efforts to fill up the vacancies in these Departments. Then only, we will be able to control these kinds of things.