(LiveMint)
The government will decriminalise the Income Tax Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as part of steps towards taking the country to a $5 trillion economy, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said. The minister said in her address on the ‘roadmap to a $5 trillion economy’ at the Nani Palkhivala centenary celebrations in Chennai on Sunday that decriminalising corporate laws, settling tax disputes and rapid privatisation of state-run firms were among the steps that the government was taking to achieve the goal.
The government has already identified the statutory changes to be made in the Companies Act to decriminalise several procedural lapses and those that do not affect public interest as part of efforts to reduce the rigors of compliance and to improve ease of doing business. The idea is to amend about 46 penal provisions to either remove criminality, or to restrict the punishment to only fine, or to allow rectification of defaults through alternative methods, which would help to de-clog the criminal justice system in the country. The intention now, is to extend this exercise to laws dealing with income tax and money laundering.
