Bulldozed through, bill gives Indian taxman free rein
- Thread starter Serious Carrey
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StraightShooter
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GMO seeds only generate profits for the corporates. Farmers do not profit rather they commit suicide.
Serious Carrey
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Allowing unlimited, anonymous donations to political parties is a very disappointing move by the government. Until recently, the government was talking about disclosing all political donations more than Rs 2000 to curb black money and corruption. This new finance bill negates that.
The nexus between politics and business is one of the main reasons for black money and corruption. I was excited that BJP was fixing it. Need to wait and see what its game plan is.
The nexus between politics and business is one of the main reasons for black money and corruption. I was excited that BJP was fixing it. Need to wait and see what its game plan is.
ashok321
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Political parties under RTI: CIC keeps issue 'in abeyance'
Information Commissioner R K Mathur has directed to keep 'in abeyance' the matter pertaining to political parties not adhering to the Right to Information Act, thus putting the controversial issue in cold storage.
The note, in this regard, was issued after Bimal Julka, one of the members of the bench hearing the case, recused himself on December 23, 2016.
'Till the bench is reconstituted or a decision taken on IC (BJ) note, the proceedings may temporarily remain in abeyance,' Mathur had stated on December 29, 2016.
Nearly three months later, there is no word on replacement of Julka in the bench and the matter hangs in a limbo.
The file notings have now been disclosed by the Central Information Commission under the RTI Act to activist R K Jain, who had filed a complaint against political parties.
Mathur's direction to keep the hearing in abeyance comes in spite of a 2014 order of the Delhi high court to the Commission to decide within six months the complaint filed by Jain.
The activist has alleged that the parties were not replying to RTI applications and have not put in place any infrastructure mandated under the RTI Act.
Six national parties -- the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, the Communist Party of India and the Bahujan Samaj Party were brought under the ambit of the RTI Act by a Full Bench of the Commission on June 3, 2013.
This order was neither challenged in a high court nor changed but the political parties have refused to entertain the RTI applications directed at them. -- PTI
Infant's views from an incubator:
And now the "electoral bonds" have been introduced by none other than PM Modi - The
Machiavellian PM of India!
Truly this man walks an extra mile for political corruption. The quid pro quo has been eloquently & meticulously designed and set up by him and his coteries to help each other.
Modi gets cash, so do Indian industrialists who get hefty write offs each financial year, despite none of them being insolvent.
Shame on such PM of India.
Indian progress would be there, albeit at a tardy & unpunctual pace, minus the social life of Indians.
India is shooting itself in a foot with such kind of hypocrite & dishonest PM, one that reeks of immorality!
Allahabad: With PM Modi, CJI Khehar on stage, Adityanath says law is supremeYogi Adityanath shared stage with PM Narendra Modi and CJI JS Khehar at Allahabad High Court today.
Death of democracy!
Information Commissioner R K Mathur has directed to keep 'in abeyance' the matter pertaining to political parties not adhering to the Right to Information Act, thus putting the controversial issue in cold storage.
The note, in this regard, was issued after Bimal Julka, one of the members of the bench hearing the case, recused himself on December 23, 2016.
'Till the bench is reconstituted or a decision taken on IC (BJ) note, the proceedings may temporarily remain in abeyance,' Mathur had stated on December 29, 2016.
Nearly three months later, there is no word on replacement of Julka in the bench and the matter hangs in a limbo.
The file notings have now been disclosed by the Central Information Commission under the RTI Act to activist R K Jain, who had filed a complaint against political parties.
Mathur's direction to keep the hearing in abeyance comes in spite of a 2014 order of the Delhi high court to the Commission to decide within six months the complaint filed by Jain.
The activist has alleged that the parties were not replying to RTI applications and have not put in place any infrastructure mandated under the RTI Act.
Six national parties -- the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, the Communist Party of India and the Bahujan Samaj Party were brought under the ambit of the RTI Act by a Full Bench of the Commission on June 3, 2013.
This order was neither challenged in a high court nor changed but the political parties have refused to entertain the RTI applications directed at them. -- PTI
Infant's views from an incubator:
And now the "electoral bonds" have been introduced by none other than PM Modi - The
Machiavellian PM of India!
Truly this man walks an extra mile for political corruption. The quid pro quo has been eloquently & meticulously designed and set up by him and his coteries to help each other.
Modi gets cash, so do Indian industrialists who get hefty write offs each financial year, despite none of them being insolvent.
Shame on such PM of India.
Indian progress would be there, albeit at a tardy & unpunctual pace, minus the social life of Indians.
India is shooting itself in a foot with such kind of hypocrite & dishonest PM, one that reeks of immorality!
Allahabad: With PM Modi, CJI Khehar on stage, Adityanath says law is supremeYogi Adityanath shared stage with PM Narendra Modi and CJI JS Khehar at Allahabad High Court today.
Death of democracy!
AMCA
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Well even today the general public is unaware of the funding. It would make hardly any difference to the Aam Admi of this country. Overall the bill is pretty unbiased. The Income Tax department has been strengthened by giving something similar like the AFSPA to the Indian Armed Forces. Lets see how this goes, fingers crossed.
Serious Carrey
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Appreciate your opinions. Please tag other relevant members I forgot to add.
@anant_s @Nilgiri @schoolboy @TISSOT
http://www.atimes.com/political-funding-india-set-less-stransparent/
The Aam Aadmi Party, (AAP) a regional party which is in power in Delhi state, has just received a notice from the Income-tax Department alleging that it had “incorrectly disclosed hawala money as voluntary donations”. Hawala is a colloquial Indian term for the informal and illegal transfer of cash across borders. The IT Department has raised a demand for Rs 300 million in taxes, upon the sum of Rs 680 million which AAP declared it had received in the fiscal year, 2014-15.
Political parties in India are supposed to receive 100 percent exemption from tax under Section 13A of the Income Tax Act. But parties have to file income tax returns, along with the details of every entity that has contributed over Rs 20,000.
The AAP’s leaders have responded angrily to the IT notice, saying that this is a “vindictive” attempt on the part of the BJP, which rules at the Center, to use government agencies to harass the AAP. The AAP has also pointed out that national parties such as the BJP and the INC receive far more in the way of funding from “unknown sources”.
Indeed, the reported financials of India’s two largest national parties do indicate vast amounts coming from anonymous sources. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO working for electoral and political reforms, has released many reports analyzing the nature of political funding.
Big Spending, Low Transparency
According to the ADR analysis for 2015-16 (April 2015-March 2016), the BJP declared Rs 5.708 billion in total income for 2015-16. As much as Rs 4.6 billion (81% ) came from unknown sources. The INC declared Rs 2.615 billion in total income and received Rs 1.86 billion (71 %) from unknown sources. Anonymous funding is possible due to a loophole in tax-reporting norms. Until March 31, 2017, political parties could receive cash donations of up to Rs 20,000 per donation from anonymous sources. This meant that in effect, large cash donations could be broken up into multiples of Rs 20,000 and entered anonymously. Political observers claim that this mode of “book-cooking” is standard practice.
The campaign expenditure is believed to be the biggest sinkhole for black money in the Indian economy. Hundreds of billions are spent in every General Election, much of it on buying local goons, as well as on the gratification of voters by offers of cash and liquor.
The Center for Media Studies, a Delhi-based NGO estimated that around Rs 300 billion was spent in the General Election of 2014. This is orders of magnitude more than the officially declared expenditure of all parties and candidates. This CMS estimate includes Rs 35 billion which was spent by the Election Commission. The major political parties declared that they spent only about Rs 17 billion in campaigning.
The BJP claims that it spent Rs 7.1 billion while the INC stated that it spent around Rs 5.2 billion. Individual candidates could also spend up to an official personal limit of Rs 7 million, in addition to party expenditure (which has no mandated upper limit).
Mysterious Changes
The last Union Budget in February introduced two clauses that could change the nature of political funding. One was cosmetic. The Budget lowered the limit for anonymous donations to Rs 2,000. As cynics pointed out, this would mean a little more work for accountants, who would have to break up large cash donations into smaller fractions.
The second change was puzzling, given that it was touted as a move towards transparency. The Budget introduced the concept of “election bonds” a new financial instrument, which would allow corporates to donate anonymously to political parties. What’s more, the Budget amended Company Law to remove a cap on corporate donations to political parties.
Eight months into the fiscal, further details about the nature of the proposed bonds are unavailable. Right To Information (RTI) requests for information have been stonewalled with various departments of the Ministry of Finance, the RBI and the Election Commission denying that they have any information to furnish.
Under the previous tax regime, a corporation could not donate more than 7.5 percent of the average net profit of the past three years to political parties. Corporations had to declare the quantum of political donations and the recipients of those donations in their audited balance sheets. This was a fairly transparent system.
Under the new rules, corporations can donate as much as they choose, to any party. They also don’t have to disclose the recipients. The instrument for this is a bearer bond, which is to be issued by the RBI. A corporation can buy these election bonds and transfer them to the political party of choice, which can then encash these instruments.
This scheme would make the process of donation completely opaque to citizens. It would also encourage the setting up of shell companies purely as vehicles to funnel political donations. Under this system it would be unclear to citizens which corporate donated how much, to which party.
However, the RBI will have to oversee this instrument, which would be processed through the banking system. Hence, the RBI would be aware of the identity of both donor and recipient. Opposition politicians and Right To Information activists say that this, in effect would mean that only the ruling party would have access to this information via its control of government agencies. That is a situation, which could lend itself to obvious abuse.
Assuming this system gets off the ground, it could remove all transparency and completely skew access to funding in future elections.
@Joe Shearer
Sir, may I request your input too?
@anant_s @Nilgiri @schoolboy @TISSOT
http://www.atimes.com/political-funding-india-set-less-stransparent/
The Aam Aadmi Party, (AAP) a regional party which is in power in Delhi state, has just received a notice from the Income-tax Department alleging that it had “incorrectly disclosed hawala money as voluntary donations”. Hawala is a colloquial Indian term for the informal and illegal transfer of cash across borders. The IT Department has raised a demand for Rs 300 million in taxes, upon the sum of Rs 680 million which AAP declared it had received in the fiscal year, 2014-15.
Political parties in India are supposed to receive 100 percent exemption from tax under Section 13A of the Income Tax Act. But parties have to file income tax returns, along with the details of every entity that has contributed over Rs 20,000.
The AAP’s leaders have responded angrily to the IT notice, saying that this is a “vindictive” attempt on the part of the BJP, which rules at the Center, to use government agencies to harass the AAP. The AAP has also pointed out that national parties such as the BJP and the INC receive far more in the way of funding from “unknown sources”.
Indeed, the reported financials of India’s two largest national parties do indicate vast amounts coming from anonymous sources. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO working for electoral and political reforms, has released many reports analyzing the nature of political funding.
Big Spending, Low Transparency
According to the ADR analysis for 2015-16 (April 2015-March 2016), the BJP declared Rs 5.708 billion in total income for 2015-16. As much as Rs 4.6 billion (81% ) came from unknown sources. The INC declared Rs 2.615 billion in total income and received Rs 1.86 billion (71 %) from unknown sources. Anonymous funding is possible due to a loophole in tax-reporting norms. Until March 31, 2017, political parties could receive cash donations of up to Rs 20,000 per donation from anonymous sources. This meant that in effect, large cash donations could be broken up into multiples of Rs 20,000 and entered anonymously. Political observers claim that this mode of “book-cooking” is standard practice.
The campaign expenditure is believed to be the biggest sinkhole for black money in the Indian economy. Hundreds of billions are spent in every General Election, much of it on buying local goons, as well as on the gratification of voters by offers of cash and liquor.
The Center for Media Studies, a Delhi-based NGO estimated that around Rs 300 billion was spent in the General Election of 2014. This is orders of magnitude more than the officially declared expenditure of all parties and candidates. This CMS estimate includes Rs 35 billion which was spent by the Election Commission. The major political parties declared that they spent only about Rs 17 billion in campaigning.
The BJP claims that it spent Rs 7.1 billion while the INC stated that it spent around Rs 5.2 billion. Individual candidates could also spend up to an official personal limit of Rs 7 million, in addition to party expenditure (which has no mandated upper limit).
Mysterious Changes
The last Union Budget in February introduced two clauses that could change the nature of political funding. One was cosmetic. The Budget lowered the limit for anonymous donations to Rs 2,000. As cynics pointed out, this would mean a little more work for accountants, who would have to break up large cash donations into smaller fractions.
The second change was puzzling, given that it was touted as a move towards transparency. The Budget introduced the concept of “election bonds” a new financial instrument, which would allow corporates to donate anonymously to political parties. What’s more, the Budget amended Company Law to remove a cap on corporate donations to political parties.
Eight months into the fiscal, further details about the nature of the proposed bonds are unavailable. Right To Information (RTI) requests for information have been stonewalled with various departments of the Ministry of Finance, the RBI and the Election Commission denying that they have any information to furnish.
Under the previous tax regime, a corporation could not donate more than 7.5 percent of the average net profit of the past three years to political parties. Corporations had to declare the quantum of political donations and the recipients of those donations in their audited balance sheets. This was a fairly transparent system.
Under the new rules, corporations can donate as much as they choose, to any party. They also don’t have to disclose the recipients. The instrument for this is a bearer bond, which is to be issued by the RBI. A corporation can buy these election bonds and transfer them to the political party of choice, which can then encash these instruments.
This scheme would make the process of donation completely opaque to citizens. It would also encourage the setting up of shell companies purely as vehicles to funnel political donations. Under this system it would be unclear to citizens which corporate donated how much, to which party.
However, the RBI will have to oversee this instrument, which would be processed through the banking system. Hence, the RBI would be aware of the identity of both donor and recipient. Opposition politicians and Right To Information activists say that this, in effect would mean that only the ruling party would have access to this information via its control of government agencies. That is a situation, which could lend itself to obvious abuse.
Assuming this system gets off the ground, it could remove all transparency and completely skew access to funding in future elections.
@Joe Shearer
Sir, may I request your input too?
Nilgiri
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I don't like it at all more and more. I hope Anna Hazare in the next Jan Lokpal calls for transparency regarding political donations. He should focus on only one issue this time.
I don't care too much about the cap being removed or the bearer bond being the instrument, but certainly there should be public oversight on the yearly source of funds and also the whole shell company route. The oversight should also be under purview of the supreme court rather than federal govt given the latter is byproduct of the exact same beneficiaries.
If you look at the US now its shocking (long term effects of political donation system being opaque), Obama apparently bankrupted the DNC and this lead to Hillary Clinton coming in with all her slush funds and dictated like queen bee where the DNC funding went (and it went to her campaign, and delegates were assured as well to ensure no real primary fight against Bernie).
That all being said, its not in my top 5 priorities for India as a whole. Politics is always going to be a sleazefest. When the structure is conceptually good/honest, they will still find a way to cheat it. When the structure is "adaptive/reflective" to the sad reality...it simply doesn't become cheating in the first place, so maybe we can drive some change long term by seeing this brazeness....at least to get results on the ground by holding feet to the fire etc and judging on merit etc. Thats what Indian common people should focus on more and more, results results results, no matter how the elite project/hide the change/stasis in this nebulous world of politics.
Joe Shearer
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RISING SUN
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So a person or organization shouldn't be allowed to donate their hard earned as they wish and to whom they wish to donate, sorry that's suggestion without merit. Thank you.
We can have a independent organization (or a existing one) who can do the checks regularly with condition that identity of person or organization is not leaked. Comptent athority can be the counter balance. However I am not in favor of disclosing the names of donators. Thank you.
Nilgiri
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I prioritise good sir...not "giving up"....there is a key difference. I base it on what I seen across time and space of human realm.
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