'If Wealth Creators Are Going To Be Punished...': FM Sitharaman Slams Sam Pitroda For Inheritance Tax Remark

FM Nirmala Sitharaman said that the inheritance tac directly hits the middle class adding that India's progress would reach zero if wealth creators would be punished as such.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam slammed Indian Overseas Congress Chairman, Sam Pitroda over his inheritance tax remark saying that the tax directly hits the middle class. Earlier this week, Pitroda had advocated in favour of the inheritance tax and emphasised the necessity of debating and deliberating on issues related to wealth redistribution. 

"It (Inheritance Tax) directly hits the middle class. It directly hits the aspirational class," Sitharaman said after casting her vote in Bengaluru.

"They work hard, sweat and toil of theirs are saved in small savings here and there, or they buy a house, a dream house, and keep some fixed deposits. All this is going to be exposed to the so-called property tax," she added. 

Training guns on Congress party, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said, "I remember earlier in 1968 there was a compulsory deposit scheme where people's deposits were all 18%, 20%. Something was taken away. There was no justification given at that time... If such wealth creators are going to be punished purely because they have some money kept behind, India's progress in the last ten years would just go for a zero. "

"We'll probably be going back to that era when Congress imposed a 90% tax. You'll probably not believe that the current generation, wouldn't even remember or know anything about it. There was India where under the Congress rule we paid 90% of all that was earned by us as tax. That's the socialist model which the Congress party is comfortable with...," she added.