Inheritance Tax Never Part Of BJP's Vision, Says PM Modi
His remark comes after Sam Pitroda, former advisor to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, cited US as an example for the inheritance tax.
Last week saw the controversial inheritance tax become a subject of a political slugfest between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress. In a new dig, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that his government will never on-board the idea of re-introducing the controversial tax.
In an interview with News18, Modi said that the inheritance tax is not even remotely part of BJP's vision and its manifesto.
His remark comes after Sam Pitroda, former advisor to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, cited US as an example for the inheritance tax law. His comments came after the PM's allegations that Congress planned to redistribute the nation's wealth, which the party strongly refused.
"If a person has property worth $10 million, then after his death, 45% of the property goes to his children and 55% of the property goes to the government," Pitroda had told ANI. There are no such laws in India, he said while wanting to increase discussions on this front.
"Such issues should be discussed. We are talking about policies that are in the interest of the people, not just the rich," he had said.
“What the Bharatiya Janata Party plans to do is written in our manifesto...The ideology of the BJP is clear. We go before the country with our manifesto and works. Please don’t impose their great thoughts on us," the Prime Minister said during the interview.
Congress leader and former Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, came to the party's defence and denied its intention to bring back the controversial law. "The Hon'ble Prime Minister continues to discover and read in the Congress' Manifesto words and sentences that are not there! He has imagined a Congress' Manifesto written by one of his ghost speech writers," he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The History
The law in contention was, in fact, enacted in another form until it was scrapped in 1985. Introduced through the Estate Duty Act, 1953, the Inheritance Tax remained and was payable only if the total value of the inherited portion of the property exceeded the set limit.
Before money is given to a deceased person's rightful heirs, inheritance tax is a charge placed on the entire worth of their assets.
With this tax, a country could possibly reduce the economic divide among its people and redistribute wealth to its lower class.
