Pramod Chandra Mody, chairman of the Central Board Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Pranab Kumar Das, chairman of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), shared their views on Union Budget.

On the direct tax front, Mody said, “There are two points of view, one we recently had this interim budget where the tax slabs where changed from 2.5 to 5 and again expecting some change in the slab was perhaps asking or expecting too much. As regards taxing the super-rich, first of all, let it be clarified that what has increased is only 3 percent increase in the surcharge and 7 percent increase in the surcharge for people between Rs 2-5 crore and Rs 5 crore respectively. Effectively that will bring in a revenue gain of about Rs 12,000 crore. Rs 12,000 crore is not the net gain, on account of change in the threshold limit for corporate tax paying 25 percent there I hope to lose about Rs 4,000 crore. So, what I get is net Rs 8,000 crore roughly.”

With regards to duty hike on petrol and diesel, Das said, “So far as petrol and diesel rate increase, if you see last two occasions we have reduced the rates when the petrol and diesel price itself was very high. So, the government is very concerned that the common man is not inconvenienced when rates on petrol and diesel are concerned. So that last Rs 2.50 reduction in duty entailed almost Rs 30,000 crore of duty relief to the common man. So, that government gave away when it was required. Now the rates have stabilized, crude has stabilized and now there is little space for the government to realise this extra duty. When you think of building India in so many spheres, have a secure border, we think of having a technology-driven environment where we want to see India marching into USD 5 trillion economy that requires a certain amount of research mobilization which perhaps with Rs 2 small increase in petrol, which the policy space permitted, we went ahead and we wanted to do it.”

On the mandatory filing of the income tax return for certain section, he said, “This mandatory filing of income tax return again has to be seen in the context of that when people claim deductions and it is basically an anti-abuse provision. What we want is that people should come forward and report that transactions correctly and pay the due taxes correctly. So even after claiming that deduction a person may not be entitled to file a return of income. But because he has claimed a certain deduction let it be verified and for that, it should be seen in the context of the ease with which we are trying to do that -that is faceless and anonymised assessment scheme. So it is not that the taxpayer is been put to any inconvenience. On the contrary, a lot of help is being given to them.”