These changes are
suggested in the Income Tax Act with a view to greatly simplifying the
Taxation and Tax Computation Structure.
There is no recommendation here
to reduce the Income Tax rate.
Apart from the
simplification it will result in, it will also mean a tremendous saving for
the Employers’ (Govt & Private
Sector) and the IT Department in the administrative costs of computing and determining
Income Tax as well as Salary Slip
printing & stationery costs
My
basic recommendation is this : Scrap all Tax Free allowances and compensate for the same by due adjustment of “initial tax
exemption amount” and “Tax Slab
Adjustment”
The major Allowances
that currently qualify for Tax Exemptions (under various conditions and
particularly for the salaried class) are :
Sl
No
|
Type
of Allowance
|
Normal
Amounts for which Tax Exemption Claimed Annually
|
Guesstimated
Weighted Average of Exemption Claimed (Annually)
|
1.
|
House
Rent Allowance
|
Rs.
60 K to Rs. 720K
|
Rs.
300 K
|
2.
|
Medical
Allowance
|
Rs.
15 K
|
Rs.
15 K
|
3.
|
Leave
Travel Allowance
|
Rs.
15 K to Rs. 100 K
|
Rs.
40 K
|
4.
|
Conveyance
Allowance
|
Rs.
9.6 K (Rs. 800 p.m.)
|
Rs.
9.6 K
|
5.
|
Food
/ Meal Allowance
|
Rs.
10.5K (Rs. 875 p.m.)
|
Rs.
10.5 K
|
6.
|
Educ
Allowance
|
Rs.
2.4K (for 2 children)
|
Rs.
2.4 K
|
|
|
TOTAL
WEIGHTED AVERAGE of EXEMPTION CLAIMED ANNUALLY
|
Rs.
377.5 K
|
Hence the
recommendation is that if these allowances are withdrawn and cancelled for
claiming tax exemption, the tax payer
must be compensated by a like amount, which can be done by raising the present Tax
Exemption Limit from Rs. 200 K to Rs.
577.5 K.
Assuming that the
guesstimated figure of Rs. 377.5 K being
claimed as exempt from Income Tax is correct,
the fact remains that this is essentially applicable for Salaried
Persons. Thus, raising the Tax Exemption limit to the full
extent of the above “estimated Tax
Exemption Loss” will bestow an unintended tax reduction benefit on all those who are not salaried persons.
Keeping the above in
mind, the following is recommended.
a) Complete
Withdrawal of Tax Exemptions under the above 6 heads.
b) Compensate
for the corresponding tax increase on the taxpayers as follows :
1. Raise Minimum Tax Exemption
Limit for all tax payers from the current Rs. 250 K to Rs. 350 K (in case of Senior
Citizens, raise it from Rs. 300 K to Rs. 400 K and in case of Senior Citizens
above 80 years, raise it from Rs.500 K
to Rs. 600 K)
2. Introduce, additionally, Standard
Deduction @ 30 % of Gross Salary for all salaried persons subject
to a maximum of Rs. 100K
3. Raise the Income Slabs
for 10 % and 20 % Income tax Rates as under :
i) Change
10 % IT Rate Slab from the current Rs. 201 K - Rs. 500 K to the
revised Rs. 201 K - Rs. 800 K
ii) Change
20 % IT Rate Slab from the current Rs.
501 K - Rs. 1000 K to the revised
Rs. 801K - Rs. 1500K
The rationale behind
the above recommendations is as under :
a) Compensate
the tax payer for the withdrawal of various tax free allowances by raising the
minimum tax exemption limit ; in doing
so, it is true that some people who are not salaried persons will get a
“bonanza’ because of the raising of this tax limit.
b) To
restrict such ‘bonanza” the minimum tax
exemption limit raise has been restricted to Rs. 100 K only.
c) However, to compensate the salaried tax payers who
were availing this tax exemptions, they
are compensated by giving them a tax relief through the “standard deduction
route” which is applicable only to salaried employees.
d) Finally,
the higher bracket salaried persons who are not fully compensated in the tax
exemptions they used to enjoy under various allowances (which are proposed to
be withdrawn now), the Slabs for 10 %
and 20 % IT rates are proposed to be
widened so that they get compensatory relief there.
The above is intended
to be purely a revenue – neutral but
Income Tax Structure simplification
measure, which will have the
following concomitant benefits :
1. Tax
Computation and Tax determination will become far simpler and easier.
2. Tax
Structure of various organisations (government and private) can be drastically
simplified by reducing the number of heads of payment, which
were primarily introduced to take advantage of the various tax exemptions so
far allowable under the Income Tax Act ; thus every salary structure can
now have as much as 6 fewer “heads of
payment” viz., HRA, Medical, LTA,
Conveyance Allowance, Food Allowance and Education Allowance, since having these heads will no longer reap
any tax benefits.
3. This
also means that people will not have to fudge and manufacture documents for
claiming tax benefits, particularly
for the heads related to HRA, LTA and
Medical. To that extent, the IT department does not have to spend time
and energy in “verifying” that such
claims are genuine or not, which will mean a tremendous saving in
administrative time spent and costs incurred for such work in the IT Department.
The
figures mentioned above are purely based on the undersigned’s best estimates
and are certainly not claimed to be accurate. It is recommended that, based on the information available with
the IT department and the government, these
figures may be fine-tuned and the various figures adjusted to result in a revenue-
neutral, re-alignment of the Income Tax
Structure.
Thereafter, if the government wishes to give some tax
relief to the tax payer, it may do so in addition to what is recommended above.
This
is also in consonance with the spirit of the
Direct Tax Code (DTC), that
is built on the very sensible premise of scrapping all exemptions and
compensating for the resultant “increased
tax liability” by a suitable tweaking of
tax rates, tax slabs and minimum tax exemption limits.
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