Union minister for women and child development Maneka Gandhi (pictured) has urged the union finance minister Piyush Goyal to amend the income tax law so as not to tax assets gifted to women by their spouses. A tweet from Gandhi said that the provision was originally formulated in the 1960s, assuming that women would not have any independent taxable income. Section 64 of the Income Tax Act adds income from assets gifted by husbands to their wives to the taxable income of the husband. The minister made the recommendation based on representations made to her by Indian women who feared that their husbands were apprehensive about transferring assets to them, on the ground "that income accruing from the asset would ultimately become a burden on them,” reported the Daily News and Analysis of July 11, 2018.
Gandhi had earlier urged Goyal to do away with the requirement of providing a father’s name for women while applying for a Permanent Account Number, "keeping in mind...single, divorced and separated women.”
Gandhi was married to the late Sanjay, whose father Feroze was a Parsi....