NEW DELHI: Amid a growing debate over issue of taxing farm income, eminent agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan on Saturday expressed his views against such tax and said other methods could be explored to tax rich farmers with multiple sources of the income.
"I do not agree with tax on agriculture income since agriculture is the major source of livelihood for over 50% of our population. It is a livelihood industry with multiple impact on human life. There could be other methods of taxing rich farmers with multiple sources of income", said Swaminathan – popularly known as father of India’s green revolution – in a series of tweets.
The debate on it was started a few days ago when the Niti Aayog member Bibek Debroy had recently said that taxes should be imposed on agricultural income above a certain threshold in order to expand the tax base.
Though the Aayog had immediately termed Debroy’s remark as his "personal" views and even government clarified that it has "no plan to impose any tax on agriculture income",the comment elicited a string of reactions from experts, in support and against, on the politically sensitive issue.
Clarifying the government’s stand, the finance minister Arun Jaitley had earlier this week even noted that the central government has no jurisdiction to impose tax on agricultural income as per the constitutional allocation of powers.
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