Your edit “More power to the tax man” (April 10) is timely and rightly asserts that the Budget’s move towards excessive discretion is dangerous and must be reversed. It is unfortunate that the government has not learnt its lesson. It was precisely discretionary powers that perpetuated scams and corruption — two prime reasons for which the government has come under a lot of flak. The amendment to the income tax rules with retrospective effect has given governance a bad name and giving discretionary powers to the tax man will land the government in more trouble. Then there is the confusion on how the General Anti-Avoidance Rules will be applied. At a time when we are facing a crisis on account of increasing fiscal deficit and current account deficit and need FDI, it is unwise to subject domestic and foreign investors to uncertainty.
Jacob Sahayam Thiruvananthapuram
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