Finance Bill cleared

BUDGET 2000

The Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) today returned the Finance Bill, 2000 to the Lok Sabha, the end stage in securing parliamentary approval for Yashwant Sinha's millennium Budget.

Replying to the debate in the Upper House, Sinha said the main area of concern is the growing fiscal deficit.

He said last year's aim of pegging fiscal deficit at 4 per cent went haywire and finally it went up to 5.6 per cent, the major cause being the large amount of interest payment. This along with Rs 130 billion higher defence allocation due to Kargil war and implementation of the interim award of the eleventh Finance Commission among other factors resulted in a net Rs 460 billion rise in budgetary expenditure.

Earlier, Congress member N K P Salve urged the government to make the Income Tax law assessee-friendly to improve revenues as the Income Tax Act, 1961 was ''very cumbersome, complex and confusing.''

Initiating the debate on the Finance Bill, Salve said the Income Tax Act had been amended 3,000 times and its provisions were liable to be interpreted differently by various courts.

He said the new model Income Tax Law should not have more than 100 provisions, which should be easily intelligible and suggested that the provisions for statutory deductions and various rebates available should be withdrawn and the tax rate lowered.

Demanding the withdrawal of the proposed dividend tax, Salve said it was double taxation, unethical and unjust.

Warning the government of an impending internal debt trap, the Congress member said the deficit of Rs 289.43 billion showed that it was the most expensive the country had ever had.

Noting that the deficit had shot up due to increased defence spending during the Kargil war, elections and Orissa cyclone, he said the government must downsize itself drastically and fiscal deficit should be brought down by Rs 100 billion every year.

Salve said the next Finance Commission should be asked to lay down norms for spending by the central and state governments.

Ved Prakash Goel of the Bharatiya Janata Party complimented the government for achieving a growth rate of 5.9 per cent and improving the health of industry and agriculture in the last two years.

UNI

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