Tax system in need of major reforms: Ex-SC judge

NEW DELHI: The tax system is in need of major reforms and it must be ensured that everything that people earn does not go to the taxman, former Supreme Court Judge Justice S S Nijjar has said.

"The tax system is in need of major reforms. If we have to be truly global, then we have to bring in a taxation system which has easy compliance and structure.

"Taxation should not become a source of distortion or failure in the market," he said while delivering the Presidential Address at a conference organised by Jindal Global Law School ( JGLS).

Justice Nijjar said, "Taxation has to be more than just collections, it has to be consumer friendly and there is a need to ensure that the people earning money can earn and everything doesn't go to the taxman."

Stressing on the need to reform the way taxation is taught as a subject, Professor C Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor of O P Jindal Global University said, "Taxation has traditionally been the most boring subject taught at law school and there is a need to transform this radically. This has been true not because of the subject per se but because of the way it is taught."

The conference, 'India's Tax Regime: Towards a New Legal and Economic Order', organised by JGLS recently to open a platform for debate on developments in the area of taxation, was also attended by Kamlesh Varshney and Sanjeev Sharma, Commissioners of Income tax, who focused on the role of new technology in the field of taxation.

"The past 3-4 years have seen a lot of development in the area of taxation. Things are changing and a lot of progress has been made in the areas of transparency, certainty and compliance," Varshney said, adding, "in the area of compliance, the 100 per cent compulsory e-filing has been a huge success."