A last chance for amnesty

The amendments to the Income Tax law passed by the Lok Sabha now offer those with unaccounted cash a last shot at amnesty. They can pay half their cash as tax and deposit a quarter into a new Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. Those who fail to do this voluntarily for bank deposits made since November 8 would end up retaining about 15 per cent of the total amount if they cannot establish a legitimate source for the funds. There is a Robinhood-esque edge to the PMGKY approach, directly linking the war on black money to welfare of the poor. Essentially an extension of the recent Income Disclosure Scheme that cleaned up about Rs.65,000 crore of undeclared income by levying 45 per cent tax, the December 30 deadline for bank deposits in demonetised notes gives a more purposeful push to the effort to clean out all the cash in the grey economy. The scheme for disclosing foreign assets last year had yielded just about Rs.2,400 crore in taxes, so a tougher approach was perhaps necessary to ins

Finally, a step towards changeWith the CPN(Maoist-Centre)-led government in Nepal approving amendments to the Constitution that will be tabled in Parliament, a first step towards positive change has been made in addressing federal concerns. The amendments include federal redrawing of boundaries that will allow for at least two Madhesi-dominated Terai provinces, substantial recognition of rights of naturalised citizens, especially women, and some degree of proportional representation in the Upper House. All these were major demands raised by Madhesi and other groups in agitations that lasted months and disrupted life.