THE TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAITUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 201716 TIMES BUSINESS

Mumbai: Dentsu Aegis Net-work, one of the leading fully in-tegrated advertising agencies,and Times Centre for Learning(TCLL), under its brand Time-sPro, have formed an exclusivecollaboration offering post-gra-duate diploma in digital marke-ting in Bengaluru, Mumbai andDelhi. The three-month, full-ti-me programme focuses on thestrategic and practical aspectsof digital marketing. It is sche-duled to begin from January 31,2017 and will be available for gra-duates, especially from marke-ting, retailing and the adverti-sing sectors.

With domain expertise,Dentsu Aegis Network has assi-sted TimesPro to curate a ro-bust educational programme toprovide thorough and profes-sional training to entry-levelprofessionals in digital marke-ting. The course offers a total of450 hours of instructor-led trai-ning, immersions and e-lear-ning. India’s digital marketingrequirement is growing year onyear due to the shift in the mind-set of consumers.

The teaching faculty inclu-des some of the prominent na-mes from the industry, inclu-

ding from the digital agenciesof Dentsu Aegis Network, whowill provide insights on thebest practises and latest trendsand innovations in the digitalmarketing segment. Each co-urse aspect will be addressedseparately by the relevant in-dustry expert. One of the keyfeatures of the course — ‘im-mersion programme’ — enab-les students to achieve extensi-

ve mastery in a relevant topicor aspect of digital marketing.The programme will allow stu-dents to practically experiencehow digital marketing campa-igns are actually executed.

Speaking about the associ-ation, Ashish Bhasin, chair-man and CEO (South Asia),Dentsu Aegis Network, said,“Digital marketing is the fas-test growing part of the adver-tising and marketing industry.Being domain experts throughour digital companies like Iso-bar, iProspect, WatConsult,Dentsu Webchutney and Frac-tal, we have collaborated with

TimesPro to curate a robustcurriculum relevant to cur-rent trends in the industry.”

Anish Srikrishna, presi-dent, TCLL, said, “We are gladto be associated with DentsuAegis Network, who have con-ceptualised their years of do-main expertise in the form of acourse for the next-generationprofessionals. Through thispartnership, we will be able toprovide a platform for aspi-ring students to make a suc-cessful career in one of themost lucrative career seg-ments. We shall facilitate thecourse across three major citi-es in India.”

On completion of the cour-se, students will become all-ro-und professional experts in thedigital marketing field. Theywill acquire effective knowled-ge of digital consumer behavio-ur and proficiency in digitalmarketing tools and analytics.After successful completion ofthe course, top candidates willfind placement opportunities inthe various companies of Dent-su Aegis Network and TCLL,among other top e-commerceand digital companies in the co-untry. To know more, visitwww.timespro.com/pgddm orcall 1800-102-2323.

Dentsu, Times Group to offerdigital marketing courses

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

The course offers a total of 450 hoursof instructor-ledtraining, immersionsand e-learning

Team EY

O ur tax to GDP ratio is abysmally low at just 16.6%, which

is much lower than the emerging market average of 21% and OECD (compris-ing largely of rich coun-tries) of 34%. This isn’t surprising, less than 1% of India’s billion plus popula-tion pays Income-tax (I-T) and only 3 crore I-T returns were filed for the financial year (FY) 2015-16. Various committees down the years have advocated widening of the tax base. Here are top three potential avenues, which could be explored.

1 Tax the super rich farmer

Over the past decade, ac-cording to data given by Ministry of agriculture, the GDP from agricultur-al activities has increased from Rs 8.2 lakh crore to

Rs 16 lakh crore in FY 2015-16. While fragmentation is rampant in the agricultural sector and many farmers, even if taxed, would fall below the Income-tax (I-T) exemption limit of Rs 2.5 lakh, there is still scope for garnering tax from the su-per rich farmers.

Let us take a more pre-cise figure. As reported by TOI earlier — in its edi-tion dated March 13, 2016 — there are thousands of individuals declaring an agricultural income of over Rs 1 crore each. Dur-ing the nine-year period from financial year 2006-07 up to 2014-15, the number

of cases with Rs 1 crore-plus agricultural income was 2,746. For the financial year 2014-15, 307 such cas-es existed. CBDT asked its ground level officers to ex-amine these cases and also detect any errors which may have crept into the I-T returns when declaring ag-ricultural income. A PIL is pending in the Patna High Court, which points to the rampant misuse of tax-free agricultural income.

Mind you, these are sta-tistics of agricultural in-come based on I-T returns filed, there may be many more cases of crorepati farmers who have not filed their I-T returns.

How much can govt get? As-suming profit from agricul-tural income to be 5% of the GDP of Rs 16 lakh crore, we arrive at profit of Rs 80,000 crore. If such profit is sub-ject to tax at the lowest slab of 10% (assuming that all farmers would not fall in the

highest tax slab), the gov-ernment can get Rs 8,000 crore

Or, let’s just focus on crorepati farmers. Assum-ing that each of the 307 crorepati farmers, who filed their I-T returns dur-ing 2014-15 earned only Rs 1 crore each and not more. It works out to an agricul-tural income of at least Rs 300 crore. Tax at a flat rate of 10% would fetch govern-ment Rs 30 crore.

Suggestion: Parthasarathi Shome-led committee on Tax Administration Re-forms in its report (2014) had suggested bringing

large farmers having in-come above a higher thresh-old limit, say Rs 50 lakh into the I-T net.

Budget 2016, introduced a flat rate tax on dividend income for rich sharehold-ers. Dividend income is no longer tax free for those shareholders earning divi-dends of Rs 10 lakh or more. Likewise, a case can be made out for taxing crore-pati farmers, earning more than Rs 1 crore at a flat rate of 10%. Or the agricultural income threshold can even be lower as suggested by the committee.

This will require both a constitutional change (as agricultural income is a state subject) and a politi-cal to be a reality.

2 Legalise gambling &

betting and tax itThe gambling industry is booming despite it being largely illegal. All forms of gambling except horse rac-ing, rummy and lotteries are banned in India, with some state specific excep-tions — such as casinos in Goa. As per an industry report, the betting mar-ket in India is worth Rs 3 lakh crore approximately (this includes betting of all kinds including betting on cricket matches, which is a large chunk).

According to news re-ports, on an average, bets worth Rs 1,300 crore are placed when the Indian team plays an ODI cricket match. In 2015, the Indian team played 21 ODIs, which bring the betting figure to

Rs 27,300 crore. Every IPL match adds as much as Rs 530 crore to the domes-tic illegal betting pool. On this basis, given that 60 IPL matches were played dur-ing 2015, the total betting amount aggregates to Rs 31,800 crore.

How much can govt get? Ac-cording to the industry re-port, if the Rs 3 lakh crore gambling market is legal-ised, the government could garner Rs 12,000 — 19,000 crore a year from taxes.

Or, the government could make a start with India’s most popular sport, cricket. Given the aggre-gate betting figure of Rs 59,100 crore and a basic tax rate of 30% the tax could be Rs 17,730 crore.

Suggestion: Many countries are earning tax from gam-bling activities (see chart). Legalising cricket betting was recommended by the Justice R N Lodha commit-tee appointed by the Su-preme Court to investigate the IPL match fixing scandal which rocked the country in 2013. In addition to brining in revenue, legalising gam-bling and betting will also crack down on money laun-dering operations.

3Estate Duty is gaining ground

world over, but…Estate Duty is also referred to as Inheritance Tax or Death Tax and it exists in many countries across the world. Simply put, Estate Duty is a tax on the value of the property left behind

by a deceased person to his heirs. In India, Estate Duty was payable under the Estate Duty Act, 1953. This Act was finally abol-ished in March 1985. It was a complex law riddled with different valuation rules for different kinds of prop-erty, thus it gave rise to a host of litigation and the collections were not com-mensurate with the cost of administration of this tax.

When estate duties ex-isted, estates valued at over Rs 20 lakh, attracted a high duty of 85%. For the 1984-85, it garnered Rs 20 crore (which was 0.4% of the to-tal direct tax collection in that year).

How much can govt get? Di-rect tax collections for 2015-16 were Rs 14.6 lakh crore. Assuming the collection ra-tio remains unchanged at 0. 4%, it works out to a collec-tion of Rs 5,840 crore.

Suggestion: India must not be hasty in reintroducing estate tax for several rea-sons. A fair share of Indian business entities are family run. Introduction of es-tate duties will impede economic growth and could result in cessation by Indian promoters of their India residential sta-tus. Business operations could also move overseas. If at all, at some time in the future, India decides to walk down this path, ex-emptions must be carved out — such as for residen-tial houses. The basic ex-emption limit must also be quite high — such as, in the US, it is $5.45 million, which translates into Rs 36.8 crore per person.

Three new taxes that govt could introduce, but won’t

Country Revenue In cr

USA $27,714m 1,80,141UK £2,666m 22,661Singapore SGD 2,600m 14,300Source: Latest figures from publicly available data

TAX COLLECTION FROM GAMBLING & BETTING

New Delhi: The EconomicTimes on Monday announ-ced the launch of the IndiaLeadership Council (ILC),with an aim to bring about“change” in the country’s bu-siness environment.

Designed as an exclusivemembership-based networ-king platform, the ILC will pro-vide access only to senior cor-porate leaders from across in-dustries and geographies. Itplans to bring together the co-untry’s top business leaders,resulting in face-to-face mee-tings, alliances and germina-tion of new ideas.

“The Economic Times hasalways championed the causeof catalysing India’s economicand business growth,” said Vi-neet Jain, managing director,BCCL. “As a value propositionto the country, the Council will

facilitate the building of ‘busi-nesses’, ‘leaders’ and ‘rela-tionships’ not confined to justbusiness.”

The advisory board of theILC boasts of some of the mostaccomplished names from In-dia Inc such as Anand Ma-hindra, N Chandrasekaran,Deepak Parekh, Aditya Puri,Ajay Piramal, NarayanaMurthy, Venu Srinivasan,Harsh Mariwala, Amit Agar-wal, Janmejaya Sinha, R Ses-hasayee and Kiran MazumdarShaw among others.

The ILC will help buildleadership in the countrythrough regular mentors-hip sessions and workshopsthat will involve globally re-nowned Indian business vi-sionaries. In addition, ILCwill also introduce its mem-bers to some of the brightestglobal minds through exclu-sive interactive sessions.

ET launches IndiaLeadership Council

Tax experts say that thewithdrawal of limits rai-ses the spectre of a ban-

king cash transaction tax in thebudget. Earlier, with the limits, atax on withdrawals seemed lesslikely. The removal of limits oncurrent accounts will endRBI’s stand-off with the Elec-tion Commission. RBI had ear-lier said that it could not allow ahigher limit of Rs 2 lakh per we-ek for candidates as requestedby the commission. Since elec-tion expenditure is not a perso-nal expenditure, it would bemade out of current accountswhich have no limits.

“For most of our customerswithdrawal limits were typicallyRs 18,000 before demonetisationand Rs 10,000 for customers ofother banks,” said Rajeev Anand,executive director, Axis Bank.

Banking cashtransactiontax coming?

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