Does not reflect Congress' position, says Jairam Ramesh on Sam Pitroda's inheritance tax comment

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday said that Sam Pitroda's comments on inheritance tax do not reflect the party's position.

"Surely, in a democracy an individual is at liberty to discuss, express, and debate his personal views. This does not mean that Mr. Pitroda's views always reflect the position of the Indian National Congress. Many times they do not," said Ramesh in a post on social media platform X.

This comes after Pitroda, the Chairman of Indian Overseas Congress advocated for the implementation of an inheritance tax law in India.


Drawing inspiration from the American system, Pitroda explained that in the United States, when an individual with substantial wealth passes away, only a portion of their assets can be transferred to their children, while the government claims a significant share. He claimed that adopting a similar approach in India would be fair and beneficial for the public.

"In America, there is an inheritance tax. If one has 100 million USD worth of wealth and when he dies he can only transfer probably 45 per cent to his children, 55 per cent is grabbed by the government. That's an interesting law. It says you in your generation, made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair," Pitroda said.

"In India, you don't have that. If somebody is worth 10 billion and he dies, his children get 10 billion and the public gets nothing...So these are the kinds of issues people will have to debate and discuss. When we talk about redistributing wealth, we are talking about new policies and new programs that are in the interest of the people and not in the interest of the super-rich only," he added.

Jairam Ramesh said, "Sensationalising his comments now and tearing them out of context are deliberate and desperate attempts at diverting attention away from Mr. Narenda Modi's malicious and mischievous election campaign; that is anchored only in lies and more lies."

Pitroda today morning issued a clarification on his remarks and said, "It is unfortunate that what I said as an individual on inheritance tax in the US is twisted by Godi media to divert attention from what lies PM is spreading about Congress manifesto. PM’s comments on Mangal Sutra & gold snatching is simply unreal."