On Wednesday, Indian Overseas Congress Chairman, Sam Pitroda promoted the idea of Inheritance Tax, citing America as an example. The Congress party’s campaign is largely driven by addressing “growing inequality of wealth and income through suitable changes in policies.”
In the backdrop of this, the opposition assumed that Congress plans to introduce it as a policy. However, Congress has denied backing Pitroda’s advocacy and Jairam Ramesh, a senior leader at Congress has said that there was “ no plan whatsoever to introduce an inheritance tax.”
BJP lashed at Pitroda’s comment
The Inheritance Tax advocacy faced backlashes from the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman herself. She raised her concerns about the middle class families that will suffer the most and could push back India to a decade old era.
In an interaction with ANI – after casting her vote in Bangalore South constituency– she said, “I remember earlier in 1968 there was a compulsory deposit scheme where people’s deposits were all 18 per cent, 20 percent. Something was taken away. There was no justification given at that time…
If such wealth creators are going to be punished purely because they have some money kept behind, India’s progress in the last ten years would just go for a zero. And we’ll probably be going back to that era when Congress imposed a 90 per cent tax. You’ll probably not believe that the current generation wouldn’t even remember or know anything about it. There was India where under the Congress rule we paid 90% of all that was earned by us as tax. That’s the socialist model which the Congress party is comfortable with.”
“It (the inheritance tax) directly hits the middle class. It directly hits the aspirational class. They work hard, sweat and toil of theirs are saved in small savings here and there, or they buy a house, a dream house, and keep some fixed deposits. All this is going to be exposed to the so-called property tax,” she added.
Even PM Modi reacted and said, “the Congress says that it will impose an Inheritance Tax, and it will also impose tax on the inheritance received from parents. The property you have accumulated through your hard work will not be given to your children.” He directly hit Congress with his remark “Congress has only one motto – that of looting people during their life and even after their life.”
Also Read: Election Heatwave in India: How global media houses are covering PM Modi’s controversial speech ?
Did Congress Retaliate ?
Members of the congress party have refrained from addressing this controversy in their campaign speeches. In a tweet made by Jairam Ramesh, a senior Congress party leader has clarified that “The Congress has no plan whatsoever to introduce an inheritance tax. In fact, Rajiv Gandhi abolished Estate Duty in 1985.” He has accused BJP of seeking to introduce an Inheritance Tax of 55% and linked a video of BJP MP Jayant Sinha arguing in favor of it.
Later via a post on X, Mr Pitroda himself clarified that he only cited an example to trigger a debate, “I mentioned US inheritance tax in the US only as an example in my normal conversation on TV. Can I not mention facts ? I said these are the kind of issues people will have to discuss and debate. This has nothing to do with policy of any party including Congress.”
The Estate Duty ‘Death Tax’ Act , aka Inheritance Tax Act, was introduced in 1953 and later abolished in 1985 by the Ranjiv Gandhi government. As per the Act, tax/duty was imposed on the principal value of movable and immovable property, including agricultural land, passed on to any person after the death of the owner of such property and the tax rate was calculated as per the market rate during the time of death.
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