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Simple language, lucid, says FM as Parliament passes Income Tax Bill, 2025
Explaining the rationale for the new law, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, 'Some parts of the Income Tax Act, 1961, have become outdated and hence a new legislation was needed.' She added that the aim of bringing in a new law is for simplifying the language and lucidity which is required for understanding.
"By removing redundant provisions and archaic language, we have reduced the number of Sections from 819 to just 536. We have cut the number of Chapters from 47 to 23. The number of words have been reduced from 5.12 lakhs to 2.6 lakhs," she added
Opposition members staged a walkout in the Rajya Sabha during the discussion, mirroring their protest in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
The minister criticised the Opposition for the same, saying, 'I am shocked that the Opposition doesn't want to participate. Opposition had agreed in the Business Advisory Committee to debate in the Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha."
She also introduced the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2025, in the upper house.
The revised legislation adopts most of the recommendations made by the Select Committee led by Lok Sabha member Baijayant Panda. A key change is relief from the alternative minimum tax (AMT) for partnership firms and limited liability partnerships (LLPs).
The AMT, set at 18.5 per cent plus cess and surcharge for non-corporate taxpayers, is designed to prevent high earners from eliminating their tax liability through exemptions. LLPs with only long-term capital gains are otherwise taxed at 12.5 per cent.
In its earlier draft, the Bill had left out a crucial reference to Chapter VI-A deductions in the AMT provisions for LLPs. Without this, even LLPs earning solely LTCG taxed at 12.5 per cent would have faced the higher AMT rate. The updated draft restores this reference in Clause 206, ensuring AMT is triggered only when total income is reduced by such deductions, in line with the original intent.
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The Wire
a few seconds ago
- The Wire
‘Disenfranchising People While Passing Bills in Parliament': TMC MP Sushmita Dev
New Delhi: Amid the ongoing protests by the opposition during the monsoon session of parliament demanding a discussion on the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar, the government has pushed ahead with legislative business and passed crucial Bills, including the new income tax Bills, and two Bills relating to sports governance: the National Sports Governance Bill and the National Anti-Doping (Amendment) Bill. Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sushmita Dev in an interview to The Wire said that voters from whom legislators derive their mandate are being asked to prove the genuineness of their right to vote even as Bills are being passed in parliament. 'As Abhishek Banerjee [TMC general secretary and Lok Sabha MP] has said, according to the Election Commission (EC)'s own inquiry, 65 lakh voters have been removed [from the draft rolls in Bihar]. So this brings into question the 2024 elections also. How can this Lok Sabha continue?' she said. 'You cannot say that people will spend their time, money and energy proving the genuineness of their right to vote on the one hand, and the rest of us are sitting in parliament elected by these very people [on the other]. We get our mandate from people. You are disenfranchising people and you are passing Bills in parliament?' The government's move to push ahead with the bills comes as the opposition march to the Election Commission on Monday was stopped and MPs were detained. Meanwhile the stalemate between the opposition and treasury benches has continued over a discussion on the SIR. Read edited excerpts of the interview below: 1. The TMC was one of the first parties to allege irregularities in the voter rolls. The EC has cited some of these concerns that the TMC itself raised to conduct the SIR. If voter rolls are to be purified, why the opposition to SIR? There is a dual mischief – on the one hand, they have made the SIR into an exclusionary process. The EC's job is to make democracy stronger so that more and more people participate in this democratic process, but the SIR is turning into an exclusionary process. On the other hand, as Mamata Banerjee pointed out in February, while you are taking out voters because of lack of documents, we are seeing duplicate EPICs [elector photo identity cards]. Who issues the EPIC? It is the EC. You are excluding massive numbers like 65 lakh on the one hand, and on the other hand you are encouraging false voters and the duplication of voters. This is a multipronged process that is making a mockery of the democratic process. 2. Your party has alleged that the SIR is being used to usher in a National Register of Citizens (NRC) through the backdoor. Why do you say so? The EC has every right to remove people who have died or migrated. We accept there should not be foreigners, but deciding who is a foreigner is a mandate that lies with the Union home ministry and not the EC. It is not that the TMC or any opposition party is advocating for foreigners in the electoral rolls. Under the Citizenship Act, 1955, the home ministry is the relevant authority and once the home ministry determines after an inquiry through the NRC or the NPR [National Population Register] that somebody is a foreigner, then the EC will remove that person. The EC cannot make that inquiry on its own. 3. If voter roll purification is to be done, how would the TMC propose that it be done? If an exercise like the SIR is to be done, all political parties should have been brought on board. This exercise should have been spread over months so that awareness is created, and political parties are involved in creating that awareness. The rush with which it is being done, given the profile of our electorate which includes the marginalised, poor and those who live in remote areas, where not everybody is highly educated, this is becoming an oppressive measure. This is not only against the constitutional mandate but also against the spirit of the constitution. 4. The opposition's march to the EC's office on August 11 was stopped and MPs were detained. The EC says they were ready to meet 30 MPs. Why couldn't a decision be taken to send a delegation of 30 MPs? The EC is not ready to listen. We decided we will march to the EC with our demands – a peaceful protest with the demand that the SIR has to stop. They give a letter one day before to say only 30 people can come to meet us. The move to not give machine-readable data, questions over a surge in votes after 5:30 pm – these are questions that have to be asked. You have negated all this and now when we have decided to come to you, you say only 30 people will come. Why will 30 people come? Who will decide the number? If the EC had bonafide concern about what we are saying, it should have been handled differently. Since you are planning to do an SIR across the country, should you have not called all political parties? The NRC in Assam was a Supreme Court-monitored exercise that continued for six years. Till today, have they notified the NRC? A process that took six years, monitored by the Supreme Court and conducted by the home ministry under the registrar general, why hasn't it still been notified? What you could not do in six years that you want to do in six months? 5. The monsoon session has been almost a washout barring the discussion on Operation Sindoor, with the government and the opposition at a stalemate over a discussion on the SIR. The government says that the EC is an independent constitutional body and cannot be discussed in parliament. How do you respond to that? We are saying that the SIR is directly impacting the democratic rights of every citizen; the concept of 'one man, one vote' is under challenge. The question is, why can't the people's concerns be debated in parliament? They are talking about the autonomy of the EC. But every procedure that it embarks upon – whether it is delimitation or anything else – you have to involve all political parties. Autonomy does not mean that you embark on this massive enquiry without any consensus with political parties. 6. With the monsoon session due to end in a few days, will this stalemate continue? The government has already said that they have no option but to continue with legislative business. Amid opposition protests, crucial Bills like the Income Tax Bill, the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, the National Sports Governance Bill and the National Anti-Doping (Amendment) Bill have been passed. Important Bills like the Sports Governance Bill should have been sent to the standing committee. But they bulldozed these Bills through parliament, just like they did for the three farm Bills, which they paid a price for. It is a bad precedent they are setting because they fear scrutiny and accountability. As Abhishek Banerjee has said, according to the EC's own inquiry, 65 lakh voters have been removed. So this brings into question the 2024 Lok Sabha elections also. How can this Lok Sabha continue? You cannot say that people will spend their time, money and energy proving the genuineness of their right to vote on the one hand, and the rest of us are sitting in parliament elected by these very people [on the other]. We get our mandate from people. You are disenfranchising people and you are passing Bills in parliament?
The Hindu
a few seconds ago
- The Hindu
Opposition to take call on protests against Bihar SIR on August 18
The Opposition parties on Thursday (August 14, 2025) welcomed the Supreme Court's directions to the Election Commission of India to take steps to make the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) more transparent but said that the observations illustrate the shortcomings in the process that require a debate in the Parliament. A call on continuing the protests against the SIR in the last week of Parliament's Monsoon Session, which ends on August 21, will be taken at the floor leaders' meeting on Monday. Speaking to The Hindu, Congress general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal, who is also a petitioner in the case, said that the Opposition's campaign will end when all the issues concerning the SIR are settled. 'We will decide our Parliamentary strategy on the issue on Monday morning when floor leaders of Opposition parties meet,' he said. CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said the issue of legality of SIR is yet to be determined by the Supreme Court. The interim order, he said, addresses some of the basic objections, but for the 3.5 million migrant workers whose names have been struck off, the onus remains on them to raise objections. 'The scale of exclusion is huge, time is short and most of the electors have been wrongfully penalised for no fault of their own. The onus of correction should also be put on the perpetrators of the error,' he said. Lauding the Supreme Court's directions, DMK's Rajya Sabha floor leader Tiruchi Siva said the judiciary has done its bit and now it is for the legislature to play its role. 'Judiciary has come to the rescue of democracy, it is now for the legislature to safeguard it,' he said. CPI(M) general secretary M.A. Baby, in a post on X, said the debate over SIR extends beyond mere revision, raising concerns about 'systemic sabotage' in the voters' list that could undermine democracy. The party's Rajya Sabha floor leader John Brittas said the Opposition's protests had started against the SIR in Bihar, but since then more evidence has emerged on adulteration of voter lists that must be addressed. 'We need to deliberate upon the electoral process and how to ensure its sanctity. We will take a considered call on Monday on how to proceed further,' he said. Trinamool Congress's Rajya Sabha member Saket Gokhale said the Supreme Court's directions partially prove the Opposition's allegations and the issue must be discussed in Parliament. 'Even before the Supreme Court has settled the issue, the EC has announced its intentions to carry out such an exercise in West Bengal and Assam. This shows its sinister agenda to tamper with the elections. Why is it in such a hurry,' he asked.
Mint
31 minutes ago
- Mint
Uttarakhand to toughen anti-conversion law; life imprisonment, ₹10 lakh fine proposed — check details
The Uttarakhand government's move to bring another legislation to amend the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act is expected to make the law even more stringent. The amendment, approved by the state cabinet, aims to prevent religious conversions through coercion, fraud, or undue influence. The amendment legislation, approved by the state cabinet on Wednesday, proposes a maximum punishment of life imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹ 10 lakh for forced conversion. Currently, the maximum prison term for the offence in the state is 10 years and the highest fine is ₹ 50,000. This is the second legislation to amend the Act, which has been in force in the state since 2018. The first amendment was made in 2022. The Pushkar Singh Dhami-led government is preparing to introduce the legislation during the monsoon session of the state assembly, which is scheduled to begin on August 19, reported news agency PTI, citing sources. According to the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion (amendment) legislation, 2025, fraudulent or forced conversion would be a cognizable and non-bailable offence. In such cases, police will be allowed to arrest an offender without a warrant and bail will be granted only if the trial court (sessions court) is convinced that the accused is not guilty and would not repeat the offence. "Yet another amendment legislation to make the law even more strict has been occasioned by recent cases of conversions in the state aimed at demographic change," PTI quoted Ajendra Ajay, BJP leader and former chairman of Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple committee, as saying. Terming the cabinet's decision as historic, Ajay said: "An amended act with stricter provisions will work as a strong deterrent for potential offenders and help preserve the original identity of a border state like Uttarakhand, which is also known as Devbhoomi." The Bill also expands the definition of inducement to include any gift, gratification, easy money, or material benefit in cash or kind, employment, free education, promise of marriage, hurting religious faith, or glorifying another religion, categorising all of them as crimes. It also makes punishable acts such as promoting or inciting conversion through social media, messaging apps, or any online medium.
