Happy at RBI's decision to bring start-ups under priority sector: FM

Sitharaman says govt will soon be coming with taxpayers charter of rights which was announced in the Budget

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday lauded the RBI’s move to include start-ups in the priority sector lending group. “I am really happy that the RBI yesterday (Thursday) very clearly said that they would place the start-ups also under priorities on lending benefits,” she said while inaugurating the Nani Palkhivala celebrations at Sastra University through videoconferencing.

Highlighting her ministry's move to simplify the tax process, Sitharaman said the government will introduce a taxpayer’s charter of rights, which was announced in the Budget.  It will clearly state the obligation of taxpayers towards the nation as much as clearly pronouncing their rights. She said only few countries in the world — Canada, Australia, UK and US — have charter of rights for the taxpayers.

Sitharaman recalled the steps that her ministry has taken to simplify the tax system, from giving an option to taxpayers up to a threshold for a lower tax regime with less exemptions, to reducing corporation tax rates, and introducing faceless scrutiny. 

She said the personal likes and dislikes are not going to be a driver of scrutiny and therefore the personal interface which becomes a bargaining point will no longer be a part of the tax system at all. The finance minister reiterated that only 0.25 per cent of returns were taken up for scrutiny in 2018-19. The FM said new technological steps such as Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana, digital payments helped the government transfer money to the vulnerables during Covid-19. It is here that the country has emerged as the leader in the fast changing world amid the outbreak of coronavirus, she said.  

Chandra: Pending court cases cost India Inc Rs 45,000 crore a year

Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said India Inc loses about Rs 45,000 crore a year due to huge backlog in courts. “I think it is a huge overhead, huge spend, huge inefficiency which needs to be addressed.”  He said the country’s judicial system has a huge capacity issue. According to the national judicial data grid, around 30 million cases are pending in courts. To solve this, Chand­rasekaran emphasised using the altern­ative dispute resolution mechanism.