There should be no sympathy for charitable institutions

Income tax authorities are entitled to conduct surveys on charitable institutions found violating laws and there should be no sympathy for them, Finance Minister Arun said today.
Replying to a debate on the Finance Bill in the Rajya Sabha, Jaitley cited the examples of hospitals and religious institutions getting land and tax exemptions from the government and later becoming commercial entitites.
"Should the Income Tax Act say that because you were originally a charitable institution, I will shut my eyes because I have no power. Let us assume somebody is allotted land for a religious purpose, he builds commercial buildings on it, should the Income Tax Act say that I am not going to look at it? They are certaintly entitled to survey it," he said.

Jaitley said, "if somebody is violating the law, let him be surveyed, why should we sympathise?"
He was responding to Congress leader Kapil Sibal's charge that the government aims to target its political opponents through the proposals in the Finance Bill.
"They (charitable institutions) are your political opponents on whom you conduct survey and who you search every other day and we are fighting in court against it. Your own organisations which fund you, those are charities which you have never searched," Sibal alleged.

"Since Mr Sibal legitimately claims that he has been appearing in a number of cases, he knows all the cases that I am referring to, Jaitley said but did not elaborate.

"Irrespective of who is in government the reality is that almost every hospital in Delhi that got land like this and created an institution like this is today a corporate hospital," Jaitley said.
He said at the time of search, conventionally you can take possession of the entire assets that you suspect to be legally held.
"Instead of confiscating everything you can pass a prohibitory order of attachment saying we are leaving it with you but don't sell it in the meanwhile. Why should such a provision be considered unfair? When the assessment takes place, if it is a fair acquisition of wealth it will be released," the Finance Minister said.