New Delhi, Nov 12: The Standing Committee on Finance will hold a meeting ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament to discuss steps being taken by the government to deal with the menace of black money and bring back the illegal wealth stashed abroad.
“We will meet on November 18 to discuss issues relating to black money and the state of the economy,” sources said. The Winter Session of Parliament, which is likely discuss several contentious issues including inflation and the state of economy, will begin on November 22. The committee at its meeting on Friday, sources said, discussed the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) bill which seeks to replace the half-a-century old Income Tax Act, 1961.
The Parliamentary Committee is headed by senior BJP leader and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. The DTC Bill, which aims to streamline the direct tax regime, was referred to the Standing Committee for comments by the government.
The Bill was introduced in Parliament by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in August last year. The government proposes to implement the DTC from the next financial year. As regards the black money, the government has taken a host of steps including signing double taxation avoidance agreements with several countries to deal with the menace. The treaty signed with Switzerland for exchange of banking and tax-related information was operationalised last month.
As far as economy is concerned, inflation has remained at near double-digit mark despite the several interest rate hikes by RBI since March 2010. However, on the other hand the growth rate has slipped to 7.7 per cent in the first quarter of the fiscal and the year is likely to end with a GDP of 7.6 per cent, down from 8.5 per cent in 2010-11.
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