Sir, those friends who want to increase the maximum limit from Rs. 250 to one per cent of the income, I am afraid, have entirely misunderstood the needs of the Centre and the manner in which whatever the Centre collects by way of income-tax is distributed to the provinces. Let us first of all see what the Centre gets and what proportion is given away to the provinces. A large proportion of the income-Tax is distributed to the provinces. Only a fraction is retained by the Centre. Another source of revenue to the Centre is excise and even there the Centre is only a collecting agency for purposes of uniformity. As in the case of income tax a large proportion of it is to be given away to the provinces on principles hereafter to be laid down by the Finance Commission. The only thing that the Centre collects and retains for itself is the customs revenue. Therefore the Centre will be completely starved if we go on allocating various sources of revenues to the provinces. That is what our friends are attempting to do. The article which has now been moved by my honourable Friend, Dr. Ambedkar is a concession. Income-tax is a source of revenue to the Centre. The Profession Tax is an invasion of the income-tax field. There is already a provision in the present Government of India Act of 1935; Section 142-A fixes the maximum limit at fifty rupees. This profession tax is an invasion into a source of revenue for the Centre. From its collection of income-tax, the Centre gives grants-in-aid to the provinces and the provinces in turn give grants-in-aid to the municipalities, corporations and various other local bodies. This is not as if this profesional tax is the only source of, revenue to the local bodies and village panchayats. In the villages there is no professional tax. Agriculture is the only profession there. There is no justification for increasing the maximum from Rs. 250 to one per cent. of the income especially considering the rise in the cost of living index, which is now nearly three time the time the pre-war figure. The suggestion of my Friend, Mr. Shibban Lal Saksena, is that the maximum, instead of being Rs. 250. should be one per cent, If Rs. 250 is the maximum, then the income on the basis of one per cent should be Rs. 25,000. Is there a chance of any one having an income of more than Rs. 25,000 in an ordinary village? Therefore this suggestion is not going to be useful so the villages are concerned. So far as the municipalities are concerned, it is only from the provinces that money could flow into the municipalities as it would flow from the Centre to the provinces. This could only be from the allocations made from the, income-tax collected by the Centre. Under these circumstances, Rs. 250 which is now the, upper limit is sufficient and anything more than that would seriously interfere with the collection of income-tax by the Centre. I am therefore constrained to oppose the amendment of my Friend, Mr. Shibban Lal Saksena, and support the article as moved.
