Trade unions seek inheritance tax, higher corporate tax in pre-Budget meeting

Leaders of various trade unions met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman here on Thursday for the customary pre-Budget consultations and submitted a memorandum demanding that resource mobilisation has to be done by increasing the corporate tax, wealth tax and introducing inheritance tax instead of burdening common masses with the Goods and Services Tax on essential food items and medicine. The trade unions urged Ms. Sitharaman to raise the ceiling of income tax for salaried classes and the ceiling on gratuity should be removed. When ten Central Trade Unions submitted a joint memorandum, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh presented a set of demands separately.

The trade union leaders urged the Finance Minister to focus on improving the purchasing power of common people in the country and to make efforts to enhance the domestic demand. They said the tax structure could be changed to help the working people and the coverage of social security mechanisms must be expanded looking at the overall insecurity in the society. They said wage agreements are not implemented even in public undertakings and asked the Centre to increase the spending in social sector.

On the status of about one crore scheme workers in the country, the BMS memorandum said the Union and State governments must recognise these workers as its staff considering the permanent and essential nature of their duties. “We suggest that, until regularisation is done, the government should increase their honorarium, which has not been revised since 2018 despite significant inflation,” the BMS demanded.

The ten CTUs said in their memorandum that the 45th Indian Labour Conference had recommended “worker status” for all scheme workers, but it was not implemented yet. They demanded that the Employees State Insurance Corporation benefits must be extended to the scheme workers. “Ensure allocations for implementation of the Supreme Court order on Gratuity to Anganwadi workers and helpers and extend it to all scheme workers,” they said.

The BMS demanded an expansion of the MGNREGA to guarantee 200 days of work per family and that the job guarantee Act must be linked to agriculture, allied sectors, rural, micro and small enterprises, and village industries. The BMS asked the Centre to increase budgetary allocation for the scheme proportionately by increasing wages.

The CTUs noted that the wealth inequality among the people in the country has reached “an obscene level”, impermissible in a civilised society. “Over the decades, corporate tax rates have been slashed down unjustly and at the same time increasing indirect tax burden on common people resulted in an utterly regressive tax structure. That must be corrected in the interests of fairness, equity and propriety. Even one percent inheritance tax on the super rich with the ceiling can fetch huge amount to the budget receipts. It can be used to finance the education, health and other social sectors. Hence immediately GST on essential food items and medicine, medical insurance has to be drastically reduced,” they said.

Demanding that the new pension scheme must be scrapped and the old pension scheme must be restored, the CTUs said the minimum provident pension must be enhanced from ₹1,000 to ₹9,000 and it should be linked with DA. “There should be budgetary allocation,” they said and added that the 8th Pay Commission should be constituted immediately. “The pensioners should also be continued to be kept under its coverage, scrapping the Validation Act enacted through Finance Bill in the previous budget,” the memorandum added.