No wealth tax on agriculture land: Finance Ministry

New Delhi: Under attack over proposal in the Budget, the government today sought to explain that wealth tax was proposed only on urban land and not on agricultural land. “As the wealth tax is levied only on unproductive assets, there was no intention to levy wealth tax on the agricultural land which cannot be termed as unproductive assets,” the Finance Ministry explained after passage of the Finance Bill 2013 in the Lok Sabha amid opposition walkout. [caption id=“attachment_742469” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The government explained that the taxes were being levied only on urban land and not on agricultural land. Reuters. [/caption] It further said that the wealth tax is not leviable on urban land which is “classified as agricultural land in the records of the Government; and used for agricultural purposes”.The proposed amendment will take effect retrospectively from April 1, 1993, the Ministry said. With apprehensions raised by farmers, especially those in Punjab and Haryana, and capitalised by Congress’ opponents, Finance Minister P Chidambaram took the first opportunity to clarify that there was no intention of the UPA government to levy wealth tax on agriculture land. Referring to the other proposal of one per cent TDS on sale of property exceeding Rs 50 lakh, it said the person will not be required to obtain Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number (TAN) for that transaction. “In order to reduce the compliance burden on the deductor deducting tax under section 194-IA (I-T Act), it is proposed to insert a new sub-section… to provide that the provisions of section 203A shall not apply to a person required to deduct tax in accordance with the provisions of new section 194-IA,” the Ministry added. It also clarified that furnishing of PAN will not be a pre-condition for claiming lower rate of withholding tax of 5 per cent on payment of interest to non-resident entity for investment in long term infrastructure bonds. As per the earlier proposal, withholding tax of 20 per cent was to be levied on such payments in case the non-resident entity failed to provide PAN.This has been done in view of “practical difficulties” faced by non-residents in obtaining PAN. The proposed amendment shall take effect from June 1, 2013. PTI