Tax NRIs to help the poor: Prof Bhagwati

NEW DELHI: The Government should collect a small tax from Indians living abroad and spend it for the welfare of the poor, suggested the noted economist Jagdish Bhagwati.

The Government can call it the "Bhagwati Tax", the Columbia University professor said while addressing the Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas here today.

A small surcharge on the taxable income of Indian citizens working or living abroad, Bhagwati said, could be utilised for the welfare of the people back home.

"The role of the diaspora in India's ongoing march to world-class status ...(is) important in the still incomplete and associated task of alleviating the poverty that all our great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru ceaselessly wrote about and were concerned with," said Bhagwati, a serious contender for the Nobel Prize for Economics.



Indians living abroad, he added, should not think only in terms of their rights but also discharge their obligiations to the country of their origin.

"While we get PIO cards, which fall short of true citizenship, we do need to move forward towards proper dual citizenship, the way many countries have done. But along side these improved rights, we in the diaspora also need to recognise our obligations", he said.

There are about 2.5 crore people of Indian origin residing in over 110 countries.

Should people who own more than one car be taxed?