Agricultural Income Tax Exemption

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the longest-ever Budget speech, unveiled a new tax regime, abolished dividend tax for companies, announced a 16-point plan to boost agriculture and signalled record spending in agriculture to pull the economy out of its worse slump in more than a decade. Vowing to boost the income and purchasing power of citi...

Niti Aayog further said that the government should endeavour to arrest tax evasion when non-agriculture income is declared as agriculture income.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the government has no plans to tax agricultural income, including that of prosperous farmers, saying a rich farmer is "a very rare institution" and not the norm. In an interview to news agency PTI, he said the farm sector is in distress and there was no question of taxing agricultural income.

The Centre doesn't have the power to impose a tax on agriculture income but it doesn't mean that it can't have a view. On Friday, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian waded right in the middle of a raging debate on the topic, batting for introduction of a tax on farm income.

Metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru have maximum 'crorepati' entities who have declared agricultural income of over Rs 1 crore in the last nine assessment years with the Income Tax Department.

India's tax system is lopsided with an estimated 4 lakh people paying over 60 per cent of income tax collected in the country. Salaried Indians pay more income tax than high earners in US and China according to a survey. However, many millionaire farmers do not have to pay taxes as agricultural income is exempt from income tax.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the longest-ever Budget speech, unveiled a new tax regime, abolished dividend tax for companies, announced a 16-point plan to boost agriculture and signalled record spending in agriculture to pull the economy out of its worse slump in more than a decade. Vowing to boost the income and purchasing power of citi...

Niti Aayog further said that the government should endeavour to arrest tax evasion when non-agriculture income is declared as agriculture income.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the government has no plans to tax agricultural income, including that of prosperous farmers, saying a rich farmer is "a very rare institution" and not the norm. In an interview to news agency PTI, he said the farm sector is in distress and there was no question of taxing agricultural income.

The Centre doesn't have the power to impose a tax on agriculture income but it doesn't mean that it can't have a view. On Friday, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian waded right in the middle of a raging debate on the topic, batting for introduction of a tax on farm income.

Metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru have maximum 'crorepati' entities who have declared agricultural income of over Rs 1 crore in the last nine assessment years with the Income Tax Department.

India's tax system is lopsided with an estimated 4 lakh people paying over 60 per cent of income tax collected in the country. Salaried Indians pay more income tax than high earners in US and China according to a survey. However, many millionaire farmers do not have to pay taxes as agricultural income is exempt from income tax.