The front-page report “Defer GAAR by 3 yrs, says Shome panel” (September 2) makes for sad reading. Every recommendation of this draft report seems to insist that investors should be allowed to make windfall gains by twisting every real and imagined technicality in their favour — instead of making money by providing value to their customers through supply of goods and services, getting paid and paying normal taxes on the proceeds.
Is there any rationale behind the proposed abolition of tax on gains from transfer of listed securities under the fig leaf of the possibility of ensuring tax neutrality through an unreasonable increase in the Securities Transaction Tax?
Do all these recommendations make any more sense than the convoluted reasoning of the many screening committees that arbitrarily selected captive coal block allottees without any defined criteria?
Such recommendations add substance to the continuous outcry of the Left parties that many Indians are only too happy to sell off Indian national interests to those with money, whether foreigners or Indians.
Alok Sarkar Kolkata
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