Left’s pre-Budget wishlist is old whine

Undeterred by the fact that there were no takers for their wishlists...

Undeterred by the fact that there were no takers for their wishlists before the first two Budgets of the UPA Government and that they have not even been invited for pre-Budget consultations in the past two years, the Left parties on Thursday reproduced their old wishlist for Budget 2008-9.

CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, who presented the Left’s latest wishlist at a press conference, parried queries about the rationale for reproducing the same list year after year even though there were no takers. “Earlier, the Finance Minister used to call us for pre-Budget consultations but that practice stopped after 2005,” he said. CPI general secretary AB Bardhan was, however, more forthright: “Year after year we have also been saying Inqalab Zindabad.” The Left’s proposals for Budget 2008-9 targeted, as usual, tax concessions to coporates and affluent sections. Karat cited the financial crisis in the US to buttress the Left’s arguments against full capital account convertibility.

As for the volatility in the stock market, attributed by the Left to speculative inflows, especially by FIIs, the Left re-iterated its demand for the re-introduction of the long-term capital gains tax and an increase in the short-term capital gains tax and in the rate of the securities transaction tax (STT). “We should get a certain degree of immunity if we take these two steps,” said Karat.

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The corporate tax concessions, which need to be “urgently” curbed, according to the Left, include: export profits of STPI units excluding small and medium enterprises and EOUs; donations and contributions to political parties and charitable trusts; profits of certain industrial undertakings or a ship or a hotel business; profits of undertakings engaged in development of infrastructure facilities, SEZs and Industrial parks, generation of power, and providing telecommunication services; and, profits of industrial undertakings derived from projects in backward areas. “Exorbitant” tax concessions in SEZs should be done away with without delay, said the note sent to the FM.

Opposing any hike in the prices of petro products, it said the Government should restructure the indirect tax structure on petroleum. The Left said the bottomlines of the oil companies could also be improved if Budget 2008-9 did away with the ad valorem duty structure and replaced it with specific duties. A price stabilisation fund for petro products should also be set up with resources from an oil cess.

Reiterating its opposition to the “unjustified and anti-development” provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, the Left note said under no circumstances should the FRBM deficit targets be allowed to constrain Plan expenditure. The UPA allies demanded that the Gross Budgetary Support for the Central Plan be increased by at least Rs 60,000 crore in the coming Budget.

The Left said the provision for specific relief packages and interest subvention should be replaced by constituting a Farmer’s Debt Relief Commission, which would write off the debts for small and marginal farmers. The interest rate on farm loans should be brought down to 4 per cent.