Govt drops DTC, sees no merit in going ahead with new law

The previous UPA government's pet Direct Taxes Code (DTC) has been dumped by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, saying there is no merit in implementing the Code that was first introduced seven years back.
The DTC was first mooted in 2008 to overhaul the five-decade-old Income Tax Act to facilitate voluntary tax compliance and reducing litigations.
"There is no great merit in going ahead with the Direct Taxes Code as it exists today," said Jaitley while presenting the Budget for 2015-16.
The DTC, which was conceived by former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, has been pending for over seven years now. The Bill was vetted by the Standing Committee following which the UPA government brought out a revised draft of the DTC Bill in April last year.

The revised draft had put the income tax exemption limit at Rs 2 lakh and introduced a fourth slab of 35 per cent tax on super-rich with income exceeding Rs 10 crore.
Jaitley said enactment of a DTC has been under discussion for quite some time.
"Most of the provisions of the DTC have already been included in the Income Tax Act. Among the very few aspects of DTC which were left out, we have addressed some of the issues in the present Budget," he added.