Economic
Highlight
New Delhi, 12 November 2018
Year After
Demonetisation
HUGE LOSS FOR GOVT,
PEOPLE
By Shivaji Sarkar
Two years, lots of speculation and India is
still trying to assess the benefits of invalidated currency of Rs 15.41 lakh
crore. There are benefits. It has, as per the Government, reduced black money,
widened tax base, 14,000 high-value properties brought under scanner, lakhs of
shell firms detected, 300 benami properties identified, 18 lakh suspicious
transactions spotted, cash to GDP ratio declines.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) says
that the I-T collection has increased to Rs 10.03 lakh crore 2017-18. A record
number of 6.92 crore I-T returns were filed. This was 1.31 crore more than 5.61
crore returns filed in 2016-17.
It looks good. But the taxpayer is less than
five per cent of the population. All I-T return filers do not pay tax and a
majority of them a measly sum. In 2013, CBDT data shows, only about 1 per cent
of India's population paid I-T. Even at 6.92 crore it means a mere 5.3 per cent
of the people file returns. Actual taxpayers are far less. The cost is too huge
to manage the I-T operations at 130 per cent of the taxes collected, according
to a NIPFP study. If I-T is given up the government and taxpayers can save more
and contribute to the growth.
In a country of 130 crore, detecting just
14,000 high value -- of above Rs 1 crore -- properties is not a big number. An
average flat in even Delhi’s suburbs cost around a crore of rupees. The
question is why it was not found in routine departmental operations and who is
to be blamed for it?
All the companies that are deregistered every
year are not shell companies. So projecting all de-registrations, as the taxman
is trying to tell the Government, are not that of shell companies, though truly
many are.
Again it is just 300 benami properties such a
big number? Either it means benami is a miniscule operation or is being too
hyped or the taxman could not go down to the crux. Similarly mere 18 lakh
suspicious currency swaps during demonetisation is not a big number. Not all
finally would prove after chaffing the details to be wary transactions.
The CBDT apparently is trying to overplay.
The additional income-tax payers are at the threshold level at Rs 2.7 lakh a
year, the Economic Survey (ES) 2016-17 pointed out. It raises a question
whether such low earners should be taxed at all. Abolition of the I-T would
earn the government more money, stop unnecessary harassment and add to faster
growth, a dire need after the 2016-17 slow down.
The then Chief Economic Adviser Arvind
Subramanian had said that after demonetisation there has been a 20 per cent
reduction in cash in the economy. The ES 2016-17 showed that currency in
circulation contracted by 19.7 per cent, whereas reserve money contracted by
12.9 per cent. But the recent RBI report says that cash flow has increased more
than the pre-note-ban level. It also says that actual currency circulation is
more than it was in 2016.
A major aspect of the demonetisation has
never been taken into account. In countries like Indonesia, the Indian rupee
was freely convertible. It is so even now. But the agents pay about Indonesian
rupiah 170 to a rupee against the official value of rupiah 200. They tell
visitors that they do not trust the Indian system as also they have to recover
huge losses because the currency they had was not exchanged.
The note-ban also has huge economic and
financial costs. The currency notes that were rendered illegal caused miseries
to crores of people for standing in queues for days, hitting the poorest, the
middle class, farmers, rural people the most. Millions lost wages and suffered
in myriad ways.
A World Bank study by Robert Beyer and others of the South Asia office in
different types of districts found that demonetisation’s impact was biggest in
rural districts with lower banking access and hit informal workers more. These
districts grew at a significantly slower rate in the quarter after
demonetisation and, while the shock was only temporary, the short-term local
impact was severe.
It had a huge cost on the RBI, the banking
system, security, policing, law and order and other paraphernalia in collection
of disused currency, stacking, transporting, counting at banks, recounting at
RBI, scrapping and huge overtime payments to bank staff.
The RBI has declined to reveal the cost
incurred on shredding banned currency notes worth Rs 15,31,073 crore (of Rs
15,41,793 crore), or 99.3 per cent, which returned to banks following
demonetisation, an RTI activist said, citing a response from the Central bank,
according to an agency report.
The RBI says the process of destruction of
banned notes through currency verification machines got over in March 2018 and
that invalidated notes worth Rs 10,720 crore did not return to the banks. So
what is the cost to the exchequer? Even in a modest way it would be not be less
than the cost of printing new notes.
According
to RBI annual report, it incurred a total expenditure of Rs 7,965 crore on
printing currency notes in 2016-17, which is more than double the Rs 3,420
crore spent in 2015-16 and almost 2.6 times of Rs 2770 crore spent in 2014-15.
The rise in cost of printing could be attributed to printing of new currency
notes.
This
means at least another Rs 8,000 crore was spent on collection and scrapping invalidated
currency. The transportation, often airlifting to meet the shortage and
counting at banks and recounting at RBI, recalibration of ATMs increased the
costs. Even a modest calculation would put it at not less than Rs 4,000 crore.
The
system apparently has lost over Rs 20,000 crore in printing new notes and
scrapping the old ones alone. The Government itself got lesser from the RBI,
which paid Rs 30,659 crore as dividend for the year ended June 2017. It is less
than half of what it gave a year ago at Rs 65,876 crore. In 2018, it is to be
Rs 50,000 crore.
The
raid raj increased by 158 per cent from 447 to 1152 groups and seizures rose by
106 per cent from Rs 712 crore to Rs 1469 crore. Taken together, the costs of
demonetisation seem to outweigh the benefits. --- INFA
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