NL Correspondent
Bangkok, Nov 03
India is rolling out “faceless tax assessment” to forestall any discretion or harassment in tax collection, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday as he highlighted major reform initiatives launched by his government in the financial sectors in the last five years.
The prime minister, speaking at an event to mark the golden jubilee of the Aditya Birla Group's operations in Thailand, also asserted that India now has one of the most people-friendly tax regimes globally, and that efforts are on to further improve taxation system.
In presence of a large number of Indian and Thai business tycoons, the prime minister specifically mentioned about how rolling out of the Goods and Services Tax has resulted in economic integration in the country, adding that his government was working towards making it more people-friendly.
“In the last five years, we have lowered the tax burden on the middle class considerably. We are now starting faceless tax assessment so that there is no scope for discretion or harassment,” the prime minister said.
In August, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman conveyed to India Inc. they will not face any harassment as a new system was being put in place to make officials accountable for their actions.
“In today's India, the contribution of the hard working tax payer is cherished. One area where we have done significant work is taxation. I am happy that India is one of the most people friendly tax regimes,” Modi said.
In his address, Modi also talked about cut in the corporate tax rates.
The prime minister also elaborated on steps being taken by his government to improve ease of doing business in the country and their impact reflected in several ratings about the India growth story.
“India has jumped 79 places in the World Bank's ‘Ease of Doing Business' rankings in five years. From 142 in 2014 we are 63 in 2019. This is a massive achievement. For the third year in row, we are among the top 10 reformers. The variables for doing business in India are many,” he said.
India has stopped working in a routine, bureaucratic manner as the country is undergoing transformative changes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a group of influential business leaders while hard-selling his government's economic reform initiatives.
Inviting Thai business leaders to invest in India, the prime minister particularly talked about initiatives to reform India's tax regime and said his government is now starting face-less tax assessment so that there is no scope for discretion or harassment.
The Prime Minister was speaking at an event to mark golden jubilee of the Aditya Birla Group's presence in Thailand.
The Prime Minister said it was the best time to be in India and that many things such as foreign direct investment, ease of doing business, ease of living and productivity are rising while tax rates, red-tapism, corruption, cronyism are on a decline.
“All of what I have said just now makes India one of the world's most attractive economies for investment. India received 286 billion US dollar FDI in the last five years. This is almost half of the total FDI in India in the last twenty years,” Modi said.
The Prime Minister also referred to India's dream to become a five trillion dollar economy.
“When my government took over in 2014, India's GDP was about 2 trillion dollars. In 65 years, 2 trillion. But in just 5 years, we increased it to nearly 3 trillion dollars,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday attended the 16th ASEAN-India Summit in Bangkok, Thailand.
Modi, in his opening remarks, expressed happiness on being a part of the 16th India – ASEAN Summit and thanked Thailand for the warm hospitality and extended best wishes to Vietnam for taking over as the Chairman of next year's Summit.
Modi said that India's Act East Policy is a significant cornerstone of the Indo-Pacific strategy, adding that ASEAN is at the core of Act East Policy. “A strong ASEAN will immensely benefit India,” he said.
He also highlighted the steps being taken to improve the surface, maritime, air, and digital connectivity. “One billion-dollar Indian line of credit will prove beneficial for improving physical and digital connectivity,” he said.
Modi also highlighted that last year's Commemorative Summit and Singapore Informal Summit's Decisions implementation has brought India and ASEAN closer, adding that India is willing to increase cooperation and partnership in areas mutually beneficial to India and ASEAN and expressed readiness to improve partnership and capacity building in the areas of agriculture, research, engineering, science, and ICT.
