Certainly, I will have to consult the States also. Whenever you have to impose any taxes or do anything in this matter, you have to carry the States with you.
Looking to the present political structure of our country, we have to take State with us. You can say that our Party is in power at the Centre. I shall say that. I do not shirk responsibility, particularly in this matter. Therefore, Sir, I have made an effort in this particular matter.
Now coming to taxation, I know that it is a very unenviable task of the Finance minister. I wish it were the responsibility of a Finance Minister to merely go on distributing the sweets; that would have been good. But he has to come up with taxation proposals. Do not presume that I do not realise it. But ultimately we have placed before us certain principles which can be followed while undertaking the measures of taxation. I have tried to enumerate them and I have tried to stand the test of those principles. If you see, Sir, the part B of my speech, paragraph 24, before I started giving details of taxation I have laid down certain principles. Sir, I do not want to read it again. If you see (a), (b) and (c) of that paragraph, there I have said that the tax-structure should be simplified and rationalised in such a way that the burden of assessment for the assessee as well as the tax collector is minimised.
Sir, in case of personal taxation, we have taken a major and important procedural step to see that up to a Certain limit Rs.25,000 or Rs.30,000 I do not remember it exactly the income tax officers are now required to do only sample assessments so that they can find more time to devote to the people who have got higher assessments higher income groups. That sort of simplification has been made in case of customs duty also. We have certainly rationalised the structure of customs duties. Instead of 5 or 6 rates of customs duties, we have reduced the number so that there may be more rationalisation and that rationalisation has certainly brought us more funds, as far as the exchequer is concerned.
Sir, again, fortunately or unfortunately, this country has a tax structure which has been with us for the last few decades. The major contribution to our national exchequer is from indirect taxation. I have tried, to be honest to my own conscience in dealing with every proposal that was place before me by my officers. I tried to see as to where we can increase the sources and widen the scope of direct taxation, which, really speaking, attack the incomes either the corporate tax, or the wealth tax or the income-tax—so naturally, I had to take certain steps and on the income of Rs.15,000 and above per year, we have levied additional surcharge. Sir, some Members have said that there is no incentive to the small man to save. May I ask, as I asked in the other House, how many people are there, in ordinary sense, who can, really speaking, save more than Rs.5,000 per year? We have, given many concessions to those whose savings are up to Rs.5,000. There are many incentives for those who can save up to that level. You can again study the Budget Speech very carefully. For the first rupees one thousand of savings we have given complete exemption. Similarly up to Rs.5,000 there is a large scope and there are more incentives for savings. But on further accumulations, we have not offered any concessions. I would like to claim that the taxation is stiff, so far as the wealth tax is concerned.