A 'culturally unsuitable' tax

Re-impose inheritance tax if you want to ensure an additional revenue stream. Many "foreign-educated economists" had given Finance Minister Arun Jaitley this piece of advice, as he acknowledged at a recent meeting. But he did not pay heed to it in all the three Budgets he presented as finance minister. Why? Because the proposed tax was not culturally suitable for India, said Jaitley. "In India, children take care of their parents when they are old and in turn, the parents leave their assets for them, unlike in some countries where children meet their parents once a year on Mother's Day or Father's Day," he explained.