By Rehan Ansari, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: Government’s apathy towards the learned civil response on the Direct Tax Code Bill 2010 provoked them to go public. The Federation of Religious and Charitable Trusts held a meeting with Ulema Council and Jain Temple Trusts on Saturday in Mumbai to discuss the implication of the bill.
In a beautiful renovated Karimi Library of Anjuman-e-Islam, Girish Shah of the Jain Temple Trusts called for a united fight against the bill which he said is anti people and will severely hurt the functioning of trusts specially the religious ones. He said, “Government must take into consideration the public opinion while making laws but our efforts of dialogue have failed and it is provoking us to agitate.”
L-R: Maulana Burhanuddin Qasmi (speaking), Girish Shaha, Virendra Merchant, Mufti Aizzur Rehman, Dr.Zaheer Qazi, Adv.Yusuf Muchala, Maulana Mustaqeem, Abdus Salam Salfi
Explaining the ambiguity, Maulana Burhanudiin Qasmi, Markazul Ma’arif said that on the first hand the proposed bill says religious trusts are exempted from tax but as devils lie in the detail he said, “The proposed bill which will be implemented from 2012 restricts religious trusts to work for religion.” He clarified that a trust must work as secular to get the tax exemptions.
Maulana Burhanuddin Qasmi also informed the audience about the two contentious bills — one is Enemy Property Act and the Consensual Sex Act.
Virendra Merchant, Chartered Accountant said the bill has already been presented in the parliament and being referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee under the former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. He also informed that the Federation of Charitable and Religious Trusts has made its recommendation to the committee before its last date but no response till now. He said, “The proposed Tax bill is unrealistic and it will affect every religious people.” He urged the people to be a member of federation of trusts to strengthen the cause.
Agitating about the apathy of the government towards public representation on the DTC bill, Supreme Court lawyer Adv. Yusuf Muchchala said Maulana Wali Rehmani and A. R Antulay have already sent a letter to the Finance Minister Pranab Mukharjee, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, but there is no response from the government till date. He said, “There is something wrong going and it seems intentional as far as the DTC 2010 is concerned.”
Informing about the history of current DTC 2010 bill he said the bill is made by the Income Tax officials who do not know the nitty-gritty of law and not by any Law Experts. He said, “P. Chidambaram, the then Finance Minister asked some Income Tax officials to draft the bill and therefore there are lots of legal complexities and avoidable confusing ambiguities.”
Detailing the objections in the proposed bill Adv. Yusuf Muchchala said, the first issue is the definition of the religious Trusts. The proposed law says that a religious trust should be Open for All and its benefits should not be limited to a particular community, to get the tax exemption. He asked how a religious trust can be secular in nature and how a Temple can be open to offer Namaz and Mosques to Pooja.” He further said due to constraint of resources and monitoring of aid it’s natural that religious trusts give aid to their community.
The second point he raised is that the DTC-2010 says the trusts should be No Profit Organization That means if a trusts has some surplus it has to pay 30% tax which is equal to Corporate tax that is gross injustice and robbing the poor. He said surpluses of the trusts are used for expansion of Trusts activities.
He said other objectionable point is that the trusts are not allowed to accumulate their surplus while in the earlier law they were allowed to accumulate 15%.
Furthermore 1% wealth tax is proposed on the trusts property.
Although the proposed law bars waqf property but Madarsas and educational trusts will be in trouble.
L-R: Adv.Yusuf Muchala (speaking), Girish Shah, Virendra Merchant, Mufti Azizur Rehman Qasmi, Dr.Zaheer Qazi
Dr. Zaheer Qazi, President Anjuman-e-Islam stressed the need for the awareness about this law which will definitely slow down the growth of not only the religious trusts but the charitable trusts also. He said, “The law should be made to benefit the people but DTC-2010 is intended to accumulate wealth for the government.”
He blamed that it’s the trusts that are helping the poorest of the poor where the government’s aids and concessions never reached and thus taxing the trusts is equal to robbing the poor.
Dr. Zaheer Qazi, also the member of Federation of Charitable & Religious Trusts, which is fighting against the bill, announced that after a Meeting in Mumbai they will hold a meeting in Chennai, Calcutta and Delhi to get the people together on the issue.
Maulana Mustaqeem Ahsan Azmi, Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind, Maharashtra, Maulana Abdus Salam Salfi, Jamiat Ahlehadis, Maulana Mehmood Daryabadi, also urged for the awareness campaign among the people against this anti-poor bill. Maulan Azizur Rehman Qasmi, Vice President of Ulema Council presided over the meeting.
Link: http://www.federationoftrusts.com/